Drabble 6: Dancing Through Life
A/N: I thought of this drabble myself. Send me any ideas you want to see written. Enjoy, and please review!
The candle was burning low as the two scientists sat over their work. Simmons found her mind wandering more with every passing minute, and knew she would have to put it away soon. She could tell that Fitz was tiring too.
"I think we've done all we can for the night." She said.
He looked up and half-smiled, yawning. "Yeah, you're right." He was quiet for a minute. "Do you remember pulling all-nighters back in the Academy?"
"Yes, of course." She said, curious. "Why?"
He shook his head. "I don't know; it just sort of came to mind. But it seems like we've lost the ability now, doesn't it? To stay up all night?"
"Fitz, did you ever think that we could stay up that long because we were pacing our brains? We have so much more to think about now, and all of it more complex than what we dealt with in our Academy days. Maybe we're using more energy now, so our bodies just find it harder to keep going that long without rest."
He thought about that. "I hadn't thought about it that way. So it isn't that we've changed, it's that the work we're doing has."
"And that's led to a change in behavior on our part." She finished. "We're still capable of staying up all night, but not with the work we have now."
He smiled. Even when they were exhausted, they could understand each other very well. That thought made him think of understanding other people, and then high school. When he looked back up Simmons was watching him with amusement plain on her face. "What?" he asked.
"I can tell your thoughts are wandering, but what I can't tell is how much. What were you thinking about?"
He looked her in the eyes. "Honestly? A bit of everything. For some reason my brain keeps going back to high school." He took her through his thought process and she nodded.
"That's perfectly normal, Fitz."
"I know." He said. "But now I'm thinking about something else: dances. Did you go to your high school dances?"
She bit her lip and thought for a minute before shaking her head. "No. I thought it would be a waste of time."
"I missed mine too."
They were quiet for a bit. "Is it sad that we've never been to a dance, Fitz?"
He considered it. "I don't think it's sad. It's not that bad that we didn't go to our high school dances. It would be sad if we never went to a dance, period."
They were quiet again, and then Fitz dropped his head onto the table. "We've never been to a dance before, have we?"
Simmons sighed. "It depends on what you classify a dance as. I've been to parties before. The end of year parties for all the S.H.I.E.L.D. trainees were a blast! And remember the study nights we had at the Academy? Some of them were pretty wild, you have to admit."
He chuckled. "Yes, but those weren't dances. And other parties don't count either, in my opinion. I mean dances like the prom."
"You know that we each only had one opportunity for that particular dance, and neither of us went. I was out of town for… some reason. I can't really remember, but it obviously wasn't that big a deal."
"And I just didn't care to go. I had a better time at home on the internet."
"I consider parties real dances." Simmons said. He smiled at her stubbornness. "I wasn't so antisocial that I never went to parties." Her voice became quieter. "I just usually preferred to stay home and read, at least in high school. I only came out more once we started at the Academy."
Fitz picked up his head and chuckled. "Never mind what I said before. We have been to real dances."
"Are you sure?"
He nodded, an idea coming to him. "Yes. But they weren't what they should have been." He stood up. "And we're going to fix that right now."
"What are you doing?" she asked.
He opened his laptop and quickly typed something in, smiling. "I'm making sure we have the dance we deserve." He found what he was looking for and clicked the mouse once, and the speakers on the laptop started playing.
It was soft music, slow and beautiful. Fitz walked over to his friend and held out his hand. "Jemma Simmons, may I have this dance?"
She looked shocked for a minute, and then she smiled and gently accepted his hand. "Of course, Fitz." She said. She stood and they walked to the middle of the room, the area with the most space. Fitz placed one hand on her waist, hesitantly, and with the other one grasped her hand. She rested her free hand on his shoulder. They began to coast gently from side to side, swaying and taking small steps, dancing at arm's length, as they both knew was proper. Their eyes stayed focused on one another.
As the song continued they drew even closer together, until there was almost no space between them. Jemma rested her head against Fitz for a moment and closed her eyes, and they stopped moving. Then the song ended, and they slowly separated.
Neither of them spoke for a few minutes as they packed up their notes, and then Simmons broke the silence. "That was wonderful, Fitz. Thank you."
He smiled. "Now we can honestly say we've had a real dance."
She blushed a bit. "We truly have." He didn't know if it was just him being hopeful, but he thought she emphasized the word we. And he thought she sounded very happy about it.