'You. Are. The absolute. WORST!' Fitz yelled. Tears of frustration began to pool in his eyes and he slammed the transceiver onto the bench with such force that it shattered into its component pieces.

May simply raised her eyebrows. Fitz had never dared to yell at her before. She was undecided whether this exercise was a work of genius or a total disaster.

Earlier...

'Where's Jemma?' Fitz panted. He had run from the other end of base and was still two minutes late. May was waiting for him in the lab, but Jemma was nowhere to be found.

'You're on individual exercises today,' May explained. 'Shouldn't take the whole day. I'll spend my morning with you and my afternoon with Simmons.'

Fitz frowned slightly, taking in the various electronics and circuitry on the bench in front of him. They had clearly been laid out for May, but definitely not by May.

'You want me to patch a transceiver?' Fitz asked suspiciously. Knowing May, there was sure to be some catch.

May nodded. 'In under six minutes.'

This was beginning to feel awfully familiar. Fitz began to shake his head slowly. 'That was a challenge for me back then but I'm better now, and you know it. What's the catch?'

May's face was expressionless, impossible to read. She held up a set of headphones. 'Catch is, you wear these.'

'You're going to try and distract me? It's a transceiver - I can do it in my sleep.' Fitz wasn't boasting - he was simply being honest. 'Besides, aren't you supposed to be giving us specialist training? Do you even know what a transceiver is? No- no offence, of course.' He stumbled over his words a bit, fearing that he'd insulted May's intelligence.

But May merely gave a slight smile. 'Got Nathanson to set it up. You ready?'

Fitz was still watching her suspiciously, trying to figure out what she had planned, but May was all innocence. So he pulled on the headphones and took a seat at the bench. May counted him in and started the stopwatch.

Immediately, Fitz's hands flew over the components, connecting wires and sliding circuit boards into place.

'FITZ!'

Fitz froze. That was Jemma's voice, screaming his name. What. The. Hell?!

'No. No, please. Don't. Fitz, please.' She was begging now, and it was unbearable. Fitz was only vaguely aware that his hands should be doing something to the red, flat wires but he couldn't move.

'Don't. No. Fitz - NO!'

Fitz finally managed to wrestle his mind to be present enough to realise the sound was coming out of the headphones. He jerked them off and flung them down onto the bench as if he'd been burned.

'What the hell, May!'

May paused the stopwatch, even though Fitz hadn't finished. In fact, what was left of the transceiver was laying in pieces, crushed by the headphones.

'Compartmentalisation,' May said calmly. 'It's all about focus. Someday, something as simple as patching a transceiver could mean the difference between success and failure. And you won't always have a nice quiet lab to do it in.'

'Nice- Quiet- Trans-' Fitz spluttered, anger robbing him of his ability to string together words into sentences. 'Distractions are one thing, but that- THAT-' Fitz gestured angrily to the headphones. 'That is plain torture.'

A sudden, horrible thought occurred to him, and took a step towards May and glowered at her. Fitz was taller than May, but would never normally even consider using his size to intimidate her. But all reason had gone at the window with this latest circus of a training exercise. 'May,' he said quietly, his voice suddenly dangerously calm. 'How did you even get that audio?'

'You really want to know?' Contrary to what her outward appearance might suggest, May was screaming on the inside. Guilt gnawed at her stomach, for doing this to Fitz, for hurting him in this way. It may her want to run away right then and there, and shrivel up out of shame. But the rational part of her mind knew that she was teaching him how strong he could be, how strong he already was. And one day, he might need that, so May, as always, retained control over her emotions and spoke only with a remarkable steadiness. 'It's from the hospital.'

'This hospi-' Fitz took a breath. 'The- the hospital? How? When? What?' The words tumbled out of his mouth as his brain raced to make sense of this revelation.

'When you were in a coma. Simmons was always by your side. Sometimes Skye managed to make her go to bed for a few hours, but only rarely. She'd have nightmares - the audio is from the recordings.'

May's words may his heart flutter. Jemma had had nightmares that made her scream like that?

'And why- why is there are recording at all,' Fitz managed to ask in between attempts to get his breathing under control. 'Who ordered it?'

'She did.'

'I'm sorry, what?'

'I didn't really understand it,' May said honestly. 'But Simmons was so insistent about data and documentation, in case it might ever help you one day. She had video and audio running on your room 24/7.'

Of course she did, Jemma with her pedantic record-keeping. He knew that it hadn't been easy for Jemma, but he'd had no idea she was holding on to all that pain. She'd sounded so desperate, so helpless, and Fitz couldn't help but feel the tug of irrational guilt for doing this to her. And worst of all - not being there to help her through it.

'You ready to give it another go?' May's voice pulled Fitz out of his reverie.

'What?' May couldn't seriously believe that he'd put those headphones back on.

But May was serious. 'Just imagine that you're on a mission and you're doing this to save her life.'

By this point, Fitz had calmed down enough to realise that May was right. 'Fine,' he grumbled. 'Knowing our luck, that might just happen one day.'

The next seven attempts were unsuccessful, ranging from eight-and-a-half to eleven minutes. Fitz was too distracted by the Jemma's harrowing screams to make his hand and brain function properly, not even to complete a task so simple that he could probably do it blindfolded under normal circumstances. By attempt number eight, tears of anguish and frustration were gleaming on his cheeks and he was yelling nonsense at May.

'Bloody hell, May!'

'You. Are. The absolute. WORST!'

He smashed his patched transceiver on the bench, letting the pieces break off and fly in half a dozen directions.

'Fitz!' Jemma cried.

This was the last straw, and Fitz ripped off the headphones, tossing them neatly into a trashcan.

'Fitz, what on earth?'

Fitz whirled around, turning to see the real Jemma walk into the lab. She was rising from the floor, having had to duck to avoid a flying circuit board from the transceiver.

'Je- Jemma.' Fitz's voice caught in his throat and he crossed the lab in two strides. He pulled her into his arms, squeezing so tightly that she began to struggle to breath.

'Fitz- what-'

'You're all right,' he whispered. 'You're all right.'

'Of course I'm all right. What's going on?' This question was more directed to May, who was standing to one side, watching the exchanged. Fitz was evidently in no condition to answer any questions.

'I'll let him tell it. And Fitz-'

Fitz looked up from where he had buried his face in Jemma's shoulder.

'-you passed. Five minutes and forty-eight seconds.'

May strolled out of the lab, leaving the two of them alone, Jemma still wrapped in Fitz's shaking arms.