So here's Day 12 - not quite sure where it came from, but I like it, and it's about as close to a happy ending as is possible to get in real life, so hope you enjoy.

Oh, and please review - I want to try and get ... eight for this chapter, or I won't post the next one.

(Who am I kidding, I'll post the next one tomorrow come rain or shine, but the eight reviews would be really nice. Love you all, see you soon.)


"No!" She repeated, but there was a laugh in her voice, as she struggled to sit up in the uncomfortable hospital bed.

"Hey, hey." He was stood in a second, moving from the chair by the window to her beside, all but pushing her back down. "The doctor's said you weren't to strain yourself."

"It's only delaying the inevitable," she grumbled good naturedly, laying back - referring to her own mortality in the way that only those who had seen everything could.

At ninety seven years old Jemma FitzSimmons hadn't deteriorated enough to think she had seen everything - but she had seen all she needed to and now it was more than passed her time.

In a strange way, she was rather looking forward to it, as her eyes turned to the window and found the room empty once again.

She knew he wasn't real, yet she played along every time her brain conjured him up, an all too unsubtle reminder that her time was drawing to a close, the last of ... of FitzSimmons gone forever.

The smile dropped off her face as her eyes darted back to the empty chair underneath the window.

FitzSimmons had been gone for a long time already - ten years, six months, two weeks, and four days (not that she had been counting or anything), but that was how long it had been since Fitz had gone and only Simmons had remained.

Only Simmons remained.

A new trend in her life.

They were all gone now, Coulson and May (both of them gone for so many years) and Ward (managing to reach retirement, at least, his wife with him every step of the way) and Skye (was it really fifteen years ago that she had said goodbye to her best friend? But really, they all knew she wasn't going to last long, joining her husband barely eighteen months after his death) and everyone she had really ever known back when she was younger.

Even the twins had been gone for almost five years, doing everything together their entire lives until they died within three months of each other.

She supposed that was the price of living too long - eventually everyone else ... moves on.

Her drifted shut slowly as she distantly noted someone walk into the room and (finally) shut those bloody curtains.

It was a shame though.

It had just started to snow.


Sophie FitzSimmons had always been a mummy's girl, her younger sister Sarah being more of a daddy's girl, so it evened out pretty well.

Her mum didn't even have to say anything, but she knew to shut the curtains the moment she came into the room - Jemma hadn't said anything in days and the doctors had told her that it was only a matter of time, that her mother was very old and it wouldn't be painful in the slightest.

It still hurt though, the thought of losing her mother - it didn't matter if she was seven or seventy one - her mum had just always been there, and soon she wasn't going to be anymore, and she didn't know what to think or say or do.

She remembered better than Sarah - back when they were really little and spent most of their time living on an airplane with auntie Skye and uncle Grant and uncle Phil and aunt May and their cousins(once they were born that is), she still remembered.

Well - she had to - there was no one else old enough to do so, her aunts and uncles long gone, her cousins and their descendants scattered around the globe, her sister trying so desperately to make it, but trapped on the other side of the world

So here she was, in a nondescript hospital in a nondescript city in a nondescript country, with no one for company.

Almost no one that is, she amended as the noise began to build.

"Give it back," the screech echoed down the hall, a ten year old little girl screaming at her little brother.

"It's mine!" The five year old shouted back almost instantly, clutching the small toy to his chest - their mother was getting something to eat, both for herself and for her grandma Sophie - and Sophie had to smile, as memories of the same actions performed by multiple generations of children floated to the surface of her mind - some things never changed, even when everything else was, a tear slipping unbidden down the side of her face as she watched the monitors attached to her mother slow down.

A tugging at her arm caused her to wipe the droplet away quickly, before looking down.

"Nana?" The small boy whispered softly. "Are you okay?"

And wasn't that a loaded question.


"What took you so long?" The voice was familiar but it took a second to place it, because fifteen years was a long time.

"Skye!" Her own voice was incredulous and (now that she thought about it) decidedly too young. "But you're...?" She didn't know how to finish the sentence.

And then she couldn't finish the sentence, because her eyes caught on an approaching figure.

Her arms were around him in a millisecond, pulling each other close, her head tight against the crook of his neck, just breathing him in - solid and there and real beneath her.

And if a few tears slipped out while her face was hidden, then there was no one to see them.

"Leo," and her voice was a secret between the pair, too quiet for Skye or anyone else to hear, and he pressed his lips to her head in a familiar, in a comforting gesture, and she had to take a shuddering breath to readjust herself, coming to the slow realisation that his eyes were no longer on her, but on the scene behind her.

Turning, she saw what he was watching, and she smiled softly.

"They called him Leo," she whispered, refusing to let go of her Leo, of the original Leo.

"We made a beautiful family," he murmured watching the two children try to cheer up their grandmother.

"Yes we did," came the short reply, and then they were gone.


Thank you for reading, and please review,
Mia