"How does it feel to be a ghost, Dr. Fitz?" Simmons asked, giggling. Skye had just revealed to the team earlier that afternoon that all their identities had been wiped, and Fitzsimmons were working through the implications of that. With alcohol. With lots and lots of alcohol.
"Well, Dr. Simmons, it's… Interesting?" Fitz responded, laughing. "But how can you be a ghost? I can still see you!" He picked up a piece of popcorn and threw it at Simmons, hitting her square in the forehead. She shot him a dirty look, making him laugh louder. "Clearly, you're still corporeal!"
The partners were huddled up in one of the bunks Koenig had assigned the team in Providence, electing to share a room while the others split up into their own rooms. Neither had voiced their concern, but after being apart for such traumatic events over the last week, they felt more comfortable together.
Currently, one of the two twin beds in the room was serving as their temporary card table. Fitz and Simmons sat cross-legged on top of the bed facing one another, a stack of cards balanced on top of Simmons' closed laptop in between them. Apparently Koenig had a strict 'no drinks or snacks in the bunks' policy, so the partners had smuggled some piping from the lab into their bunk under the rouse of experimentation and Fitz had quickly whipped together some of his science-brewed liquor.
One glass into the stuff and Simmons was hungry and much more willing to break the rules. She urged Fitz, the Scott of course barely even feeling the effects of the alcohol, to distract the agent while she snuck into the kitchen for popcorn.
Fitz smiled at Simmons over the cards he held in his hand. He loved her like this - well, he always loved her, he reasoned - but he especially loved her like this. Giggling, slightly buzzed, carefree. They both knew they were drinking for the worst reason - to forget. But, he supposed they deserved this. A proper night off, a night to relax and just hang out like old times, before the world came tumbling down around them.
"Um… Do you have any… threes?" Simmons asked, brow scrunched up as she stared at the cards.
"Go fish."
Simmons huffed in annoyance, reaching out to draw a card from the top of the pile.
"But seriously, Fitz. What do we do now? SHIELD no longer exists! Do we still have jobs? What do we tell our parents? I can't even begin to fathom how to put this on a resume!"
Fitz snorted mid-sip of his drink, practically choking as he struggled to keep from spraying the liquid everywhere.
"Don't laugh, Fitz! I'm serious!" Simmons said, her eyes, as unfocused as they were, pleading with him.
"I know, I know!" Fitz said, finally swallowing and catching his breath. He raised a hand to placate Simmons. "It's just funny, the idea of putting together a resume. I never even thought about needing one."
"Well of course not, anyone in our field would know us by name and SHIELD certainly never needed to see our achievements on paper, since everything we've created together has been for them."
"Then why worry about a resume now? Even though SHIELD, for all intents and purposes, is technically gone, we are Coulson's team. That's our job. We are sticking with him - and Ward and May and Skye and whomever else Coulson trusts. Because we're his team. We're here to support him."
"We're supposed to be here to support SHIELD."
"Yeah, but now that that's gone, we do what we can to support its mission. And you and I both know that Coulson will fight with every last breath in his body to keep the spirit of SHIELD alive," Fitz said.
Simmons shrugged, reluctantly agreeing. "I still don't like it. The insecurity. The not knowing."
Fitz grimaced, "I know." She would have every hour of her life planned out in advance if she could. "Do you have any eights?"
"Ah!" Simmons yelled pulling two cards out of her hand and throwing them at him. "I can't believe you're going to beat me! Again! How do you do it!?"
Fitz just smiled, plucking the two cards she had flung at him and pairing them with the two in his hand. He placed the four eights in a pile next to the popcorn bowl. "I can't believe you thought we needed resumes," he muttered, smiling.
"Oh, shut up. I've never been out of a job before. When normal people lose their jobs, they get their resumes together."
"Sure. Makes sense. But Jemma, when normal people lose their jobs, it's because they got fired. It's not because the company they work for is a spy organization that was secretly overthrown by Nazis… Do you have any ones?"
"Oh, bloody hell," Simmons grumbled, throwing a card from her hand toward him as hard as she could.
The pair played on for a bit more, Jemma finally coming up empty when Fitz asked for Jacks.
Sensing Simmons' frustration over the game and their circumstances starting to overtake her carefree buzz, Fitz decided to lighten the mood.
"Still…" He drew out thoughtfully. "If SHIELD no longer exists to the public, and we're working in secret, we're gonna have to come up with a cover story."
Simmons' eyes snapped up to his and the smile he had been aching for returned. "Yes! Of course, Fitz! You're right! It'll have to be something believable, something we can do together."
"Oh, we still work together, even in our cover stories?" Fitz asked, amused and a little touched.
"Don't be daft. If we didn't still work together, that would be unbelievable," Simmons dismissed, cramming more popcorn in her mouth. "Besides, I can keep up a cover story about my day-to-day job, but there's no way I can't mention working with you. I'd slip up on the first day."
Fitz nodded, "True. You're a terrible liar."
Simmons rolled her eyes, "Oh, please. As if you could lie to your mum when she asks you about me every time she calls." The biochemist scrunched up her face and dropped her voice, using a terrible Scottish accent, " 'How's Jemma? Oh, I don't know, Ma, I haven't seen her in ages.' " She dropped the accent and smiled broadly at Fitz's annoyed face. "She wouldn't believe you for a second."
"I don't sound like that."
"Well, now you know how it feels."
The pair grinned at each other, giddy from the drinks and happy to feel something comfortable and familiar. Jemma glanced at her cards, suddenly remembering it was her turn. "Any Kings?"
"Go fish," Fitz responded. Simmons rolled her eyes as the play switched to his turn. Fitz played out the rest of his hand, winning the game. He grabbed her glass and walked over to the small desk in the corner to get them both refills - topping Simmons' glass off with a heavy pour of water in order to reduce her headache tomorrow - while his partner grumbled and re-shuffled the deck of cards.
"Zoo keepers," he said suddenly, returning to the bed and handing Simmons her glass.
"Huh?"
"Zoo keepers. Our cover job," Fitz supplied, leaning back into the pillows.
"You just want to work with monkeys," Simmons instantly rejected.
"Surgeons."
"You can't stand the sight of blood."
"Okay, well if you're so bloody smart, you come up with an idea."
"FBI. Or CIA," Simmons suggested, picking up her laptop and the cards and placing them on the ground next to the bed. She laid back onto the pillow next to Fitz and the pair stared up at the ceiling together, still holding their glasses.
"Mmm… Maybe," Fitz said, "But we'd almost certainly be separated. I'd be designing weapons and you'd be off… Analyzing bioweapons, I suppose?" He squinted his eyes shut in thought. "It could work, but I don't like the idea to committing to yet another government organization that could potentially house dangerous military secrets. Plus, if you're going to work for the government, why not your own? MI6?"
"I suppose that's true."
"Give me another one," Fitz said, taking a sip and waiting.
"Um… Oh! NASA engineers!" Simmons exclaimed
"That… Would work for me, obviously, but what would you do?"
"Study the effects of space on the human body."
"And monkeys?" Fitz asked, eyes wide. He turned to see Simmons staring at him with a soft smile.
"And perhaps monkeys," she admitted.
"I like it. NASA it is."
Simmons nodded, then snuggled back into the pillow, closing her eyes. "Fitz, you know we're not actually working for any of these places, right?"
"I know," Fitz responded, shrugging. "I just want to be happy with our fake lives. I know it sounds silly, but…"
"Of course we'd be happy," Simmons said softly, her words drifting away. "We'd still have each other…"
Fitz smiled, reaching out to take her glass before she dropped it, and slipped out of the bed. His partner was just tipsy and she was being sweet. As much as he wished she meant it the way he wanted, she didn't think about him that way. He pulled the comforter over Simmons' body and walked over to his bed on the other side of the room.
"Night, Jemma," he said softly, slipping between the sheets and turning the light off.
