Aside from an afternoon in the company of her parents, he's never had to share his time with Jemma. Her coworkers are friendly enough, but they somehow only serve as a reminder of how effortless his connection with Jemma had always been. He never has to wrack his brain for things to talk about with her or wonder if the story he was telling was a bore. The young girl from Dumbiedykes talks more than the American. She doesn't look a day over fifteen, which he quickly learns is because she is fifteen. She has the most menial of jobs, a glorified errand runner who brings tea and sandwiches to all the workers.
"They bring you food while you work? That sounds brilliant." Fitz attempts to make conversation.
"I reckon they don' bring you meals in the Army, do they?" the teenager giggles at Fitz. She is much more talkative than Bobbi. The American he'd been jealous of for weeks before realising she was a woman is much different than he imagined. He's not sure what he'd expected, but she's taller than he is and cuts an imposing figure. She's been quiet since Jemma first introduced them and Fitz gets the odd feeling that she's somehow judging his every move.
"So do you train at all with your unit? Or are you just on your own?" While he knows her question is likely mere curiosity from a fellow member of the armed services, he can't help but detect an air of suspicion.
"No, I had to go to the rifle range with them last month. First time I got to qualify with my own weapon - this Enfield that I modified - I did - well, shot quite well." He's not sure why he's bragging about his skill at the range. He'd already told Jemma how many heads he'd turned with his improved marksmanship. " I went back to see the battalion football team in the Command Cup back in December. One of my old squaddies is the backup keeper."
"But that's all?" The American's eyebrows raise in surprise.
"Bobbi - " Jemma intervenes.
"It's just a nice billet for a private is all," Bobbi shrugs. He wonders then how much Jemma has told her about his work and what exactly a private is doing by himself in Edinburgh. He wonders how much she knows about him period.
He tries to make conversation about training in the American navy and whether they have to shoot or swim. Ultimately, he settles for silence and is content to allow Nancy to take the lead on Bobbi and Jemma's historic tour of Edinburgh. She points out things like the castle where downed Luftwaffe pilots are rumored to be held and then leads them on a walk up to Calton Hill. In her letters, Jemma had described the teenager as a friend and colleague, but he can tell she is more like a little sibling to Jemma and Bobbi than anything. Someone they took under their wing while she was away from home and serving the war effort.
"I feel a bit odd doing this," Jemma remarks to him in a rare uninterrupted moment while Bobbi and Nancy venture ahead.
"Doing what?"
"Sightseeing."
"You're allowed to enjoy yourself on holiday," Fitz remarks as they slowly make their way around a 17th-century cannon.
"But taking a holiday while we're at war, it just feels...wrong."
"Who knows when you'll be back or if any of this will still be here." He can tell she looks alarmed by the fatalistic comment so he explains himself further. "You just ought to...take the opportunities when you have them." Trying not to think about the promise he'd made to himself last night as he speaks the words, he turns to take in the view she is admiring.
"It is incredible up here," Jemma sighs, looking at the combined panorama of rooftops, barrage balloons and coastline. "It feels like the Acropolis," she remarks, turning then to admire the great columns and neoclassical monuments on the hill. "Well, what I imagine the Acropolis would feel like. I've always wanted to go."
For some reason, the way she says it makes him wish he could take her there. Sometime someday when there aren't four Nazi divisions occupying Greece and the world isn't torn apart by this wretched war. "Do you know what all these monuments are?"
"Well, that's the National Monument," he points to the one that had reminded her of the Parthenon. "That's political martyrs, I think. I know there's one to Robert Burns somewhere. That one's for a mathematician and astronomer. " He nods toward the square building with stately Doric columns carved into it that's closest to them.
"That'd be my favorite then," she grins.
"You ought to see the observatory."
"Did you come up here often? When you studied here?"
"Not often," he shrugs and continues pointing out monuments. "That great obelisk there where Nancy and Bobbi are, that's to Admiral Nelson."
"An Englishman memorialized on a Scottish hilltop?" she laughs teasingly as they make their way up the stairs toward the tower and around the battlements.
"Well, most this was all built after the Napoleonic Wars."
"What's it he said before Trafalgar? England expects that every man will do his duty." Her mere mention of duty and the solemn way she speaks reminds him too much of the awkward moment they'd shared yesterday when she'd heralded his courage to enlist. He's not sure why her effusive praise and admiration makes him so uncomfortable. He just knows there are men doing far more than he is, designing weapons 75 km from his mum. He blurts out more facts about the monument to try to avoid any more admiring compliments of his bravery, sharing the knowledge that they run Nelson's famous message up the monument with signal flags every year on the anniversary of Trafalgar.
"They should have it up every day," she remarks solemnly.
"Nobody ever knows the second message he ran up with the flag." Fitz continues doling out facts. "Prepare to engage the enemy more closely."
"You're quite the tour guide." Failing to remark on the ominous order, she instead gives him a small smile. Silence quickly fills the space between them. He can tell it's not the comfortable kind. Her eyes are fixed on the memorial plaque to Nelson and the ominous words about dying for one's country when duty requires it. When Jemma does speak her voice sounds small. "Can you get called back to your unit? You know, to regular duty?"
He wants to tell her "no". He wants to believe that he can't, but he still belongs to the Highlanders. Despite the fact that he's allowed an unbelievable amount of freedom here and reports to an American officer, his orders still are cut from the Territorials. This incredible placement is just a detachment, and a temporary one he likely knows. If they get called to proper duty overseas he knows he will have to go. He'd enlisted as a rifleman and there's no getting out of that.
"I'm not going anywhere for now." He tries for a smile and some optimism. "I've got four designs I still need to finish for Coulson."`
"Right." She turns from the monument, now somehow a somber memorial about doing one's duty and dying for king and country. "I can't wait to see them all tomorrow."
"Right. Tomorrow." He doubts he'll ever get tired of hearing the words that means he gets to see Jemma day after day.
They spend the rest of the afternoon walking among the monuments and down Princes Street. The three girls make almost no mention of their job. They gripe about supervisors, poor food, and terrible shifts the way anyone would, but nothing about the specific nature of their work. Ever since Jemma's revelation to him in Sheffield when she admitted she did something she couldn't tell him, he's allowed his mind to wander about what she does. The musings stretch from fantastic speculation that she works directly with the RAF to more mundane musings about clerical work for a research laboratory. After a few weeks, he'd stopped caring quite so much. Her teary confession indicated that whatever she did she was bound to secrecy. She wanted to tell him and that was enough for him.
Nancy speaks more freely than the two older girls though and it's difficult not to begin speculating again. He discovers small things like Milton isn't the only mathematician they work with, and Bobbi, like nearly everyone there, is fluent in German or French. Those small facts get his mind wandering despite himself. He wants to forget about it. He wants to just enjoy Jemma's company and not bother with what it is she does or doesn't do.
But then Bobbi asks about his regiment and how many companies there are and she and Jemma respond instantaneously when he tells them there's A through L.
"Twelve."
Neither seem to realize their admission, but he knows in an instant then what they do. Only someone familiar with substitution ciphers would know instinctively L is the 12th letter of the alphabet.
It seems so terribly obvious when he considers it. The bizarre test she said she'd had to take years ago in London. The recommendation from her maths professor. The long shifts and constant emphasis on the important nature of her work. The need for secrecy.
They're codebreakers.
Making little show of the fact that she's in Edinburgh solely to see Fitz, Jemma arrives at the ironmonger early Sunday morning. Nancy attends church with her family and Bobbi seems happy to explore the city by herself. So they walk back to Calton Hill, which she'd seemed to enjoy so much. The quiet isolation atop the hill gives them plenty of freedom to talk about all the things they couldn't yesterday with her colleagues always in close proximity.
This brief glimpse of normalcy, of getting to see Jemma day after day, makes him, like he often does in her company, to get lost in a life where there is no war. He dares to think of a world where he's not bound to the Army and Jemma didn't have this mysterious job she could never talk about with him. He wrestles with whether or not to tell her he knows what she does. Hating himself for putting the pieces together yesterday, he struggles with the weight of another secret to share with her. At least here they get to dig into the secrets of his work.
He shows her his notebooks, the ones he'd carried around with him since the first days modifying his Enfield nearly a year ago. He gives her the pages and pages of scribbles he'd desperately wanted to put in a letter. He walks her step by step through every idea and adjustment, what worked and what hadn't. She asks questions faster than he can answer them and comes up with solutions quicker than he can write them down. He promises her she'll get to see most of the prototypes tomorrow.
"Can I really come into the shop?" she asks incredulously like he's just invited her to ride in a Spitfire.
"Of course."
"The Commodore won't mind?"
"Mostly, he just mans the shop out front. Besides, he thinks I just work on weapons for the Home Guard anyway."
"And who are you actually making them for?"
"Major Coulson."
"Right, but who does he make them for?" she presses him, only to be met with a shrug.
He'd wondered the same thing countless times, but had learned long ago not to ask questions in the military. Not even to the friendly American major.
"Not a high enough pay grade to know that."
"Don't you want to know?" The prying question reminds him of his own curiosity to learn the details of the work she did.
"I just like working on it." He tells her about the one time he asked the major. All he'd replied with was that his equipment would be put to good use.
"Oh, I can't wait to see it all. Your very own workshop! I can't believe it."
"I'll show you everything," Fitz assures her breathlessly. "Everything I can in the next...four days."
"Three days," she corrects, clearly not counting today.
"Right, three days. Better than three hours." He reminds her of the limited nature of every previous encounter they've ever had.
It seems unreal to have this much time. To plan days on end together. To lie in the grass and talk about all the projects he'd desperately wanted to share with her. To not have to be forced to say goodbye after a few mere hours in her company.
"So you want to make a non-lethal gun?" She asks, looking over his scribble from several months ago.
"Coulson wasn't keen on it, but think about it! a weapon that could disarm and disable without causing casualties?"
"What would you use? Electricity?"
"I was thinking about a toxin or some type of sedative." As soon as he says the words, her face lights up like he knew it would.
"One that could cause instant paralysis? I don't think that's possible." She expresses the same doubt initially that Coulson had when Fitz had pitched him the idea, but it quickly gives way to a look of intrigue. They spend hours musing over chemical combinations, trigger mechanisms, and firing pins. By dusk, they have a basic prototype sketched out and pages of notes to work with tomorrow. They don't even get to the myriad of other projects he desperately wants her input on.
He's working up the courage to ask her to dinner again, but before he can ask she requests to see where he lives.
"It's uh - it's nothing really. I'm just billeted above the shop. Cot and a desk is all." He stammers, not sure whether to be alarmed or comforted by the fact that she doesn't seem to realize the forward nature of inviting herself to his flat.
"Still. I like knowing - when I write you - it'd be nice to know, you know, where you are." If she intends it to be the confession Fitz hears, that she thinks about him often, she doesn't let on to that. She continues chattering on about the tiny room she stays in and how much she thinks she'd like a roommate sometimes. How despite the presence of brilliant coworkers she can call friends, she still sometimes feels alone.
"Who's Milton?" Fitz blurts out suddenly.
"Milton? I told you he works with me."
"You just...you talk about him a lot," he stammers around the real question.
"Well, we work the same shift so we spend quite a bit of time working together."
"Oh." He sucks in a deep breath and tries not to look at her when he speaks. "I wish we got to work together."
"Oh, me too!" she squeezes his arm, thinking nothing of his sad attempt at a confession. "You would love it there."
"I don't know," he dismisses. "I'm not much for people. Quite like having my own shop."
"Do you think that's what you'll do after the war?" The dogged optimism and the fact that she sees an end to the conflict makes him smile wistfully. He's thought about it sometimes. Whether he'd go back to live with his mum and work at the university lab in Glasgow or try to pursue a career at the Royal Institution like they'd both dreamed about. Sometimes he dares to imagine a life where he's brave enough to tell Jemma that she's more than just his best friend he likes to talk about the sciences with. That he's never thought about spending his life with anyone before, but he thinks about a life with her.
"So what would you usually do right now? At the end of the week on a Sunday night?" she presses as they near the Ironmongers. He laughs at how eager she seems to slip into his skin. To share what they haven't been able to for years and know each other in a way that extends beyond words on a page.
"Don't know. Make supper, I suppose," he shrugs, trying not to stare at the way she's clinging to his arm.
"What would you make?" He laughs this time at the specific question.
"Nothing exciting. Whatever rations are left."
"Potatoes, right? You always say you make potatoes." The familiar reference to his letters makes him smile.
As they reach the ironmongers shop where she'd surprised him two days ago, his heart begins to rattle inside his chest. He's never taken a woman home before. Even if Jemma just wants to see where he cooks potatoes and writes her letters. He forgot how dirty he'd left his room. Whether he'd left his pants on the floor and the remains of his breakfast are still on the desk.
"So can I see the shop tonight?" she asks as he nervously leads her up the stairs.
"Not tonight. The Commodore has the keys."
"Well, tomorrow then. I can't wait." He's not sure what makes him smile more, the fact that she is so excited to see a workshop of pistols and mines or that for the third day in a row they can make plans for tomorrow.
When he unlocks his room at the top of the stairs and swings the door open, he's not sure what she expects. It's much like he told her. There's little more than a cot in one corner and a desk in the other.
Instead of a disappointed sigh though, she sucks in a breath as her eyes scan the room.
"So this is where you live," she remarks wondrously and begins wandering slowly around the bare room like she's just been admitted to the British Museum. She admires everything from the immaculate row of uniforms hanging in his closet to his neatly made bed. "Is that the army or you?" she asks, looking at the sharp folds of the blanket tucked at the foot of the bed.
"Army, mostly," he admits. "I never used to make up the bed at University."
She gives a smile then that's he's not quite sure how to interpret.
"Do you think the army's changed you? I mean, apart from making up your bed."
"Well, I can do more push-ups than I could before," he admits, unsure what else to say.
"But apart from that?"
"Don't know really. I feel like I'm still me," he shrugs. "Whatever that means."
"I wonder if we'd have gotten on at University," she muses out loud then what he has done countless times since the moment they'd met in London. "If my parents hadn't sent me to a woman's college, of course." He can detect more than the tiniest bit of frustration that he's often wondered about. They'd have gotten on. He's sure of it. "May I?" She turns to look at the pages of scribbling on his desk. Most are things he's already told her about, but there's equipment lists too and random prototypes he'd never quite finished.
"Do you still want to get supper?" He is still eager to take her out to dinner.
"Can we just eat here? I'd love to look over these. Why didn't you bring them with you?"
"There's not much to eat here." He continues to press for a dinner date, ignoring her question. "Tin of corned beef, maybe."
"Potatoes?" she grins at the reference to his letters.
"Probably." He's not sure why she's so excited to live this bit of his life with him. He dares to wonder if she thinks about a life together after the war too. Whether her curiosity to see where he lives and sleeps and prepares his supper is rooted in something more. It seems unfair somehow, that she can see every detail of his life, but hers is still shrouded in secrecy. Swallowing the urge to tell her he's quite sure of her real job, he leads her down the stairs to the kitchen he shares with the Commodore.
There's little but stale bread, carrots, potatoes, and what's left of his sausage ration, but Jemma insists she can make a proper meal out of it. She seems excited by the challenge. He'd never asked if she was much of a cook, and in the end, they share a laugh over how inedible her attempt at a sausage roll is. Fitz's potatoes earn high marks and he jokes that they ought to, considering he makes them near every night.
"So what would you do now?" she asks once they have cleaned the kitchen and put everything away. "Now that you've made supper?"
"Make plans for tomorrow, probably. Figure out the priority of work and equipment and resource requests."
"And then what?" she continues to press.
He hesitates a moment and doesn't try to stifle the smile when he tells her the truth.
"Write to you."