A/N: Again, thank you for so many kind messages and follows/faves. I feel very blessed!
WHAT LIES BENEATH
It's Jemma's 21st birthday and she's excited to be spending it exactly the same way she's spent her last two birthdays: playing scrabble, watching old episodes of Dr. Who and eating her favourite cake with Leo at her side.
There's also a nervousness that has been sending her stomach into her throat all day.
She's finally made the decision to give all of her letters to him and has pulled the dusty box from its hiding place under her bed. Before she can go any further in her relationship with Jason, she wants Leo to know what he means to her.
Jemma suspects she's being reckless but she knows that she needs to take this chance.
She gets her hair coloured and cut especially for the occasion and buys her first 6-pack of American beer at the local convenience store. Leo will probably kill her for her choice, she knows he prefers MacEwans, but it's her birthday and she's been dying to try something American.
She has laughter in her voice when she opens the door and calls, "Please don't hate me Fitz, but I bought something called Mill-" It's not Leo that greets her in their common area with streamers and cake, but a grim faced Jason holding her shoebox of letters.
"What is this?" He asks, motioning at the box.
Jemma drops her bags on the floor and moves toward Jason, her hands out in supplication. "I can explain."
His eyes flash with anger and he lays the shoebox on the table next to the sofa and takes a letter from the top of the pile. He pulls it from its unsealed envelope.
"Dear L.F," he reads, his voice cracking in imitation. He's doing his Jemma-voice, a voice he used to tease her with. Before she would laugh, now she just cringes at the mockery. "Is it strange that I miss you?" He pulls a second letter from the stack. "I'm embarrassed to admit this, but sometimes I wonder what you must think of me." And a third, "There are times that I feel so lonely, but then I'll get something in the post from you and I don't feel so alone anymore." He motions to the letters, tossing them on the table, haphazardly. His face is one of disgust. "What is all this? You've been writing letters to Fitz?"
"I told you how Fitz and I met, Jason," she says forcing strength into her voice.
"You didn't tell me it was like this!"
"It's just nonsense," she explains, tears stinging her eyes. "The ramblings of a young girl."
"They don't sound like ramblings to me," he retorts, furious. "It looks and quite frankly, sounds like you have feelings for him. There's over thirty here!"
Jemma is stunned into silence, her mouth opens and closes to protest but she's speechless, her tears falling freely.
"Why do you have all of these?" He shakes his head. "No. The better question is if they're just ramblings why do you still have them?"
Jemma knows that she has a perfectly logical explanation for the collection; she was keeping them to one day give to Leo. The problem, she realizes, is that it's really why she wants him to have them and that she can't justify the clear emotion she knows must underlie many of the letters.
At last she whispers, "I don't know what to say."
"Do you love him?"
"Of course! You know that. He's my best friend!"
"Are you in love with him?" Jason corrects.
Her chin quivers at the question and she bats her hand against fresh tears. Her brain tells her to refute the claim; her heart, however, won't let her lie. Instead, she chooses silence.
"That's what I thought." Jason grabs his coat from the back of the sofa and heads toward the door. "I'll see myself out."
"Please, Jason! Just listen," Jemma begs, reaching for him. She's not sure what she's going to say, but she doesn't want him leaving furious with her. He waves her touch off.
"Jemma, do you know how I found those letters?" He asks, the door open to his back. "I wanted to surprise you with this." He pulls from his pocket a ring and holds it out for her to see. "Then I found that box, just sitting on your bed, like you wanted it to be found." He shrugs his shoulders. "Happy Birthday, Jemma." It's with those words that the door slams behind him, leaving her alone in darkness of the apartment.
...
Hours later, a wordless Leo pulls Jemma to his chest where she cries, her shoulders heaving, tears staining his t-shirt.
At some point in the early hours of the morning Jemma is lulled to sleep by the meditative motion of Leo's fingers running through her hair. She's curled into his lap and there's a part of Leo that wants to remember this moment. He's not sure what comes over him, but as his hands tangle through her soft, dark hair he whispers, "I just want you to be happy."
When his eyes grow heavy and his fingers languid, he feels Jemma's own fingers tighten around his free hand. His muddled, exhausted brain registers it in the moments before he succumbs to sleep himself.
...
It's the sound of the shower echoing in the apartment that wakes him up. He stands slowly, straightening his stiffened back. It's as he moves to pick a fallen pillow from the floor that he notices a shoebox sitting on a nearby table. He moves closer to it and it's then that he sees the doodles that decorate the area of the box.
His heart jumps into his throat and beats a little quicker when he notices, among a collection of poorly drawn daisies, a faded red coloured heart with the letters L.F. scrawled within it. His fingers trace the image and his initials. He recognizes Jemma's cursive, knows instinctively that the box is hers. Leo can't help but wonder what lies within and if it was the catalyst to Jemma and Jason's breakup. Not wanting to upset her anew, he carries it to her room and places it on her bookshelf.
When Jemma is out of the shower, she finds a freshly made breakfast of blueberry pancakes and bacon. Leo insists they skip off from work in favour of spending the day watching old episodes of Dr. Who and digging in to her birthday cake.
(Jemma is a little nervous breaking the rules, but Leo reminds her that they'd never fire their best scientists)
Neither mentions Jason's name and when Jemma tucks herself a little closer to Leo somewhere around episode 4, he doesn't protest.
Jemma thinks that it's just about the best day-after-birthday she's ever had.
…
There are few subjects that Leo has been unable to master. With an IQ of 172, even some of the most impossible topics come fairly easy. The one subject that continues to baffle him, no matter how hard he tries to figure it out, is romance.
While he's had girlfriends, none lasted very long. He supposes that his constant focus on his studies as a teen left little opportunity to really put time into developing a proper relationship. His sister once laughed at him after he'd told her, for what seemed like the hundredth time, that he didn't have a girlfriend.
"Oh Leo," she'd said, teasingly. "You're an absolute idiot. You've had a girlfriend for years."
Helen constantly teased him about Jemma but he'd just assumed his lab partner saw him as only a friend. Certainly she would never want to date him; she was top of their class at the Academy and came from one of the wealthiest British families. He, on the other hand had failed First Year math and was the son of a single mother who barely made minimum wage as a seamstress.
Over a year had passed since Jemma had broken up with Jason and something had changed between them. Leo can't quite identify exactly what, but there is a sudden closeness that gives him hope that she may return his feelings. Her smiles have been brighter, her eyes wider and he can't help but notice that she's seeking his touch more frequently. Often while watching television, she regularly tucks her arm into his own and rests her head upon his shoulder. Once while grocery shopping, she'd threaded her fingers into his. She's constantly by his side helping him improve and bring to life his many creations; her encouragements push him to go beyond his technological limitations. Leo wonders if maybe she'd always been like this and he's just now noticing.
When it comes to Jemma Simmons, Leo wants to do things properly and it's because of that desire that he begins to overthink every little aspect.
He sneaks a few books from the library (purposefully avoiding Beth's regular shift) and reads up on what the experts say on the issue. Their conclusions leave him even more confused than ever. Some say to just ask the girl out, put it all on the line; others say to ignore her until she makes the first move. None of their suggestions really strike him as being appropriate for Jemma. So instead, in true Leo Fitz fashion, he decidedly avoids the situation all together.
Avoidance comes fairly easily as they're in the middle of perfecting the Holocom and most of their conversations begin to revolve around it's performance and enhancement. While he's testing the accuracy of the interactivity and the integration of the DWARFs into the programming, he's unaware of the extra glances that Jemma steals.
Following their presentation in the S.H.I.E.L.D auditorium on the effectiveness of the Holocom's use in forensic investigation, they are bombarded at the foot of the stage with congratulations. Leo can't think of another instance when he's shaken so many hands.
He's in the middle of explaining to Professor Vaughan how the DWARFs work with the Holocom's platform when he notices out of the corner of his eye, Jemma talking with Deputy Director Maria Hill. He's momentarily stunned to realize that the high ranking S.H.I.E.L.D agent is even in attendance and wonders what she could possibly be discussing with Jemma.
As Professor Vaughan asks him whether the Holocom registers nanoparticles from site surfaces, he sees Jemma grin wildly and glance toward him, nodding her head. He smiles in return, but he knows the smile doesn't reach his eyes; he can't help the sudden, sharp sense of dread that fills his heart.
"Agent Fitz? Are you listening?" Vaughan tugs at Leo's sleeve, pulling his former student's attention back to him. Leo is instantly reminded as to why he finds talking to his old professor tedious.
…
When the last of the audience members vacate the auditorium, Jemma breathes a sigh of relief. She thinks that this presentation was the most stressful and also most important of her life. Well, hers and Leo's.
She smiles to herself at the thought. Her and Leo. It's a partnership that, looking back on, took time to really come into its own. But now she can't deny it; they are a team.
"The best damn team at S.H.I.E.L.D, I reckon," Leo's voice echoes her thoughts and she laughs. Secretly, she loves that they can read each other so well. Together they've made such progress. Their combined innovations are the sorts of things she thought were impossible when she was younger. But together they've made the impossible, possible.
Jemma presses her hands against her lab coat, her smile wide and excited. Her heart thumps against her chest nervously as she turns to face him. She finds it vaguely ironic that they're standing in front of a stage for this moment. She has news to share with her partner; major, life-altering news.
"I have something to tell you," her words are echoed at the same time by Leo. She laughs. It's not the first time they've spoken over each other. "You first."
Leo nods and it's then that she notices he's grown suddenly serious.
Jemma Simmons has studied chemistry and biology for as long as she can remember. Her parents gave her her first microscope and chemistry set when she was 7 years old. From that moment forward she was always throwing together combinations of elements and seeing how they would react. What she continues to love about her chosen scientific fields is that the conclusions are largely predictable; when two or more molecules interact, a series of reactions lead to a standard, mostly predictable result.
(She'll later suspect that it's her inability to predict the unpredictable that causes her to react in the way that she does.)
"Jemma- uh- I- I…" Leo stutters, wringing his hands at his stomach. She recognizes his nervous tick and reaches for his hands, settling them with her own.
"Leo, is everything okay?"
He looks at her, suddenly wild eyed. It's as though he's surprised by something she's said.
She loses her chance to question him further when he reaches for her; his hands on her face and his lips pressing against her own. His body says what his words can't and she relents beneath his mouth, folding into his kiss. Her fingers tug at his sweater, pulling him closer; his hands move to tighten at her waist. She's longed for this, has wanted it for as long as she can even remember. What starts as a hesitant kiss becomes braver as her hands lace into his hair.
It's the sound of a distant door slamming that wakes her from her daze and causes her to drag herself from his embrace.
"No!" She whispers panicked and red faced, her chest heaving with each breath. "We can't-" Her words are weak and broken.
It's the truth; they can't.
Leo's face falls with hurt and confusion, they're both speechless and Jemma knows that she owes him an explanation. But her eyes sting with tears and rather than let him see her fragile and crushed, she runs from the auditorium.
She hates what she's done, hates what it means for them; she wishes that she could find the words to make it better.
...To be continued...
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