A/N: I should be writing the paper I actually have due for class tomorrow, but I wanted to get this up before I did anything else. There's really not too much more to go now!

Thank you so much anyone who's kept reading this for all these months, and especially thank you to those lovely human beings who take the time to write such sweet review. Seriously you guys are the best.

Enjoy!

And from then on, Fitz was part of the group. He had been rewarded with hugs from Daisy, Lady Mackenzie, and Dame Isobel when he met them in the corridor as he left the infirmary, and Mack had clapped him on the shoulder, apparently at a loss for words. Bobbi was back, and one less thing was wrong with the world.

Jemma was still wary of him as he started appearing at gatherings more and more often, but Fitz knew that Daisy and Lance were always pleading his case either subtly by asking Fitz about his work to make Jemma see that they would get along well or, more obviously, asking pointed questions and making contrived excuses to have Fitz and Jemma spend more time together.

Jemma seemed almost confused about what to think about Fitz, which Fitz figured was the curse warring against Jemma's (he presumed) natural inclination to like him. Sir William, on the other hand, was absolutely livid at Fitz's continued presence in the group, but Fitz noted, with perhaps too much pleasure, that his friends already seemed to prefer him to Sir William. It wasn't that they disliked the other man, he had apparently saved Bobbi first at the fortress after all, but he just wasn't very social with anyone besides Jemma, so they hadn't really gotten to know him. He mostly just hovered beside Jemma as the rest of them talked together.

Fitz's real challenge was not being too casual too quickly. He was supposed to be a scientist his friend had only met a month ago, not the prince they had known for his entire life, so he was constantly fighting the urge to slip back into familiarity with his friends.

News quickly spread around the palace of the visiting scientist who had saved Bobbi's life, and Fitz was soon brought to King.

"Master Fitz, we cannot thank you enough for what you did for Sir Lance and Lady Hunter," the King said, his voice filled with gratitude.

"This is what I do, Your Majesty," Fitz replied. "I'm just glad I could help."

The King was silent for a moment, but Fitz could tell he had something more to say.

"Would you come look at the Queen?" the King said hesitantly, as though he was at Fitz's command, rather than the other way around. "She's been unwell, and I don't know if you can help, but if you could at least look at her-"

"Of course!" Fitz interrupted his father before the man could keep rambling. "It is very possible that there is nothing I can do, but I will certainly do everything I can, Your Majesty."

The King looked relieved, as though he had almost expected Fitz to refuse. "Thank you."

He stood up and motioned for Fitz to follow him back through the door that led to their family quarters.

Fitz could barely suppress his smile at being back in the rooms he had lived in for his entire life. They passed his father's study and their family's sitting room, and Fitz could see the door to his bedroom down a corridor before the King led them down a separate hallway to where Fitz's parents' rooms were.

The King seemed far less regal than he usually did, even compared to the version of the King that was first and foremost Fitz's father. He looked nearly as beaten as Lance had seemed before Fitz and Jemma had saved Bobbi, another man lost without his wife. Fitz grew even more worried about his mother than he already had been.

"She's just here," the King said, opening a door and allowing Fitz to go first into his mother's bedroom.

The queen was lying in the middle of the bed, surrounded by pillows, but Fitz was immediately struck by how much worse she looked than Bobbi. Of course the fact that she wasn't inexplicably asleep was good, but that was the extent of the reasons to celebrate. Her skin was ashy, and she seemed to be shivering even under a pile of blankets as she tossed and turned, not asleep but not quite awake either.

"It can't be the plague," Fitz said almost to himself as he approached his mother.

"We don't believe so," his father said quietly. "She's been like this for a month, if it were the plague…" He trailed off.

Fitz knew how the sentence was going to end; if his mother had had the plague, she would have been dead by now.

Fitz lifted a hand to his mother's forehead but jerked it back almost immediately. He had expected it to be hot and sweaty like anyone with a fever that he and Jemma had ever treated in the infirmary, but, instead, it was cold, almost like ice.

"Have you ever see that before, Master Fitz?" the King asked, the faintest note of hopefulness in his voice.

Fitz shook his head. "No, never." He paused. "But I've read about it. Only the most powerful sorcerers can affect their victims like this." He turned away from his mother to look at his father. "There is no cure except to kill the sorcerer or have him retract his curse."

The King closed his eyes and sat down on the foot of the bed as though standing upright was too difficult. "Maveth. That cruel, evil man. If he's even a man. He killed Eoin all those years ago, and now he's cursed my Audrey. I… I don't know what to do."

"You find him," Fitz said, momentarily forgetting about the courtesy one was supposed to show the King. "I mean, Your Majesty can certainly find him."

The King looked up at him with a small smile. "I don't know if I believe you, but thank you all the same, Master Fitz."

"Just Fitz is fine, Your Majesty," Fitz said quickly. "I'm not really one for titles."

His father nodded and stood. "I'll walk you out then. Thank you for coming."

Fitz smiled sadly. "I'm sorry I wasn't of any help."

The King shook his head. "You were helpful, Fitz. We're lucky to have you here."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Fitz replied, smiling slightly to himself as he realized that was the first time his father had ever just called him Fitz. His parents had only ever called him Leo, and it was odd to hear the words coming from his father.

Fitz was incredibly worried about his mother, but it just added to the reasons that he needed to find Maveth and destroy him. It wasn't just about him anymore; his parents needed him too. Fitz was thankful that he was at least very much within the King's good graces, so he could use that to retain his position at the palace if he needed to stay longer than just the winter, which was looking very likely since Fitz really wasn't sure where to go from this point.

When Bobbi finally left the infirmary, still taking it easy and sitting down as much as she could, as per Doctor Garner's (and Jemma's) orders, Fitz was given a proper introduction to his old friend who thanked him again for saving her.

No one had yet to ask Fitz why he knew so much about curses, for which he was extremely grateful. He could probably get away with saying he was looking into Maveth now after his conversation with the King, but he had no legitimate reason to be researching him before that. Luckily, they all seemed too excited by Bobbi's near-miraculous recovery to care too much about why Fitz had known the particular solution might work.

And so January passed, and things weren't terrible. Fitz would really have been, not pleased, but maybe relatively content to live in this reality for a while if it hadn't been for Jemma, but, still, things were improving.

Sir William, or Will as Fitz had taken to calling him out of habit, was, of course, still a thorn in Fitz's side. Despite Will's standoffishness with the rest of the group and his outright animosity towards Fitz, Jemma still stayed with Will.

Fitz heard Jemma tell her aunt one afternoon that Will was so funny and sweet and kind with her, but that he was just so shy around everyone else. Fitz thought that was a pretty thin excuse since Will hadn't seemed shy in the least when he had threatened Fitz outside the infirmary, and Will had known these people for over a month now, so if there was any situation in which someone would be able to overcome shyness, it would be this.

But, regardless of the poor excuses, Will remained Jemma's constant companion. He would whisper to her and make her laugh and throw faces at her across the lab. It was as though he had completely replaced Fitz in Jemma's life, only with whispered, non-substantive flirting rather than Fitz and Jemma's constant stream of loud scientific argument and discussion, with as much flirting as possible in addition, of course.

But, even so, Jemma didn't glare at Fitz anymore, and sometimes she actually spoke to him without encouragement, so that was definitely a step in the right direction. Things were a long way from perfect, but Fitz was surviving.

Then, on a gloomy day in February, everything changed.

Tea was at Dame Isobel's that afternoon, and Fitz stood talking with Daisy and Lincoln as Lady Mackenzie helped Dame Isobel play hostess and Lance and Bobbi sat on the sofa laughing at something Mack, sitting across from them, had said.

Jemma and Will were the last to arrive, as they often were, but Fitz could instantly tell that something was different. Jemma was positively beaming, her hand clutched fast in Will's, and Will looked almost gleeful.

"We're engaged!" Jemma announced almost as soon as the door closed behind her. She held out her left hand to display a small diamond set on a gold band. "Will proposed in the lab just as we were coming up here." She turned to look at Will, her eyes full of love as he wrapped his arm around her.

"Oh, Jemma, that's so amazing!" Daisy practically squealed, rushing over to see the ring for herself.

The rest of the group quickly gathered around Jemma and Will offering their congratulations and asking questions about the wedding, but Fitz didn't move. He was frozen in place, unable to so much as breathe, let alone offer the woman who was supposed to be his best friend in the world, the love of his life, his unofficial fiancée congratulations on an engagement to another man. Every second felt like an eternity as he watched the celebration. It was his worst nightmare come true, but he couldn't look away.

And then his eyes met Will's.

The other man grinned at Fitz, but it wasn't the smile of a man blissfully in love reveling in his engagement. This smile was smug, a message directly to Fitz that he, Will, had won and Fitz was nothing.

He raised his eyebrows at Fitz slightly as though to ask how Fitz was planning on responding, before he very deliberately looked down to Jemma and took her chin in his hand, angling her head up so he could press a firm kiss to her lips.

That was too much for Fitz. Without a look back, he bolted from Dame Isobel's quarters and took off down the corridor. Jemma was in love with Will. Jemma was going to marry Will. The words pounded through Fitz's head as he replayed Will and Jemma kissing over and over. It was torture Fitz had never imagined, so much worse than his friends forgetting him, so much worse even than Jemma outright hating him. Jemma was more indifferent toward him now than antagonistic, but Fitz would gladly have returned to that antagonism if it meant that Jemma wasn't engaged to Will. Will had threatened him. Will cared more about his own personal reputation than the health of their friends. Will hadn't even bothered to get to know Daisy or Mack or any of them But, for Fitz, the worst bit wasn't that it was Will who Jemma was engaged to, it was that it wasn't Fitz.

Fitz found that his legs had carried him to the lab, as so often happened when he was deep in thought. The lab was safe, it was home, it was theirs. Or it had been before Maveth and the curse and Will. He raced down the stairs and crossed the lab to his old bench. Everything there was Will's now, but Fitz ignored it, sliding back against the solid rock of the wall and settling on the floor, entirely hidden by the table if anyone came in, not that anyone would.

Sobs wracked his body as he curled his arms around his knees. How had he been so stupid to think that things would ever be okay?

What if Jemma actually would have preferred Will to him if really given the choice? The fact that the curse had taken effect when he kissed Jemma was evidence enough that she was his true love. But did that mean that he was Jemma's? Fitz had assumed it was an all-or-nothing sort of thing, but Jemma had looked so happy showing off her engagement ring to Daisy. Would his Jemma have looked that happy if Fitz had been able to actually propose back before the curse? He tried to tell himself that of course she would have, but it didn't even matter. Chances were that he was never going to get his Jemma back. And even if he did, what could he expect? Jemma was engaged to another man. If she and Will got married before Fitz broke the curse, even if Jemma remembered she loved him, Jemma would still be married, and Fitz would have lost her.

Fitz knew that the realization that he now had a definite time limit to find and kill Maveth should have spurred him into action, but Fitz didn't move. He had no idea where to find Maveth, and who knew if Jemma would even still want to be with him now that she had Will. Aside from threatening Fitz and not talking to their friends, Will seemed like a great guy, always making Jemma laugh, helping her in the lab, maybe not as well as Fitz would have but still, and of course he was taller and older and more handsome and all of those things that girls apparently liked in a man. Fitz had never cared about that stuff; he'd always just had Jemma; he never needed anything more than her.

Fitz heard footsteps echoing from the stairs.

Of course Jemma and Will would come down here to celebrate their engagement. This was where Will had proposed after all. Fitz just tried to sit as silently as possible, hoping they would go away before they saw him.

"Fitz?"

That wasn't Jemma. It wasn't even Will.

"Fitz, I know you're here. Where- Oh!"

Fitz looked up to see Dame Isobel smiling sadly at him.

"How'd you know I'd be down here?" Fitz asked after a moment.

Dame Isobel laughed and took a seat on Fitz's, or now Will's, stool. "Oh my dear Fitz, you're a pretty easy one to figure out. Kind, genuine, and you wear your heart on your sleeve."

Fitz stared at the ground.

"Did you have someone special back home?" Dame Isobel asked softly.

"I do," Fitz said quietly, his eyes still on the floor, "or I did," he amended, his voice breaking.

"Is that why you're here and not there?"

Fitz shrugged but then nodded. "Yes."

"Was it true love, what you had?"

Fitz looked up at Dame Isobel, the closest thing he had ever had to a grandmother and someone he couldn't image his life without. "It was. I can promise you that." Fitz stopped, his eyes falling on Jemma's gloves sitting on the table. "It took a while for things to work out, but when they did, it was perfect," Fitz said, not sure why he was still talking, but needing to speak the words, needing to hear, out loud, that he had been in love, that he had, for however brief a time, been with Jemma, that his life had, for those short weeks, been so unbelievably happy. "But she's gone now. I'll never see her again… or she'll never see me." The magic was over. Fitz was alone.

"Oh, Fitz," Dame Isobel got off the stool she was sitting on and sat down carefully on the floor next to him so she could pull him into a hug. "My dear, if there's one thing I know, it's that true love always finds a way."

"Not this time," Fitz said bitterly as Dame Isobel released him. "It's too much."

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

"Did Daisy ever tell you about how she met Lincoln?" Dame Isobel asked finally.

Fitz, of course, knew, but Daisy had never told him the story in this reality. He shook his head.

Dame Isobel smiled to herself and began. "The King was visiting Grant and Daisy's ailing father along with a portion of his cavalry, including Mack and Lincoln, and one day as Daisy was hiding from a governess, she ran straight into Lincoln who instantly dropped Mack's shield that he had been polishing right in the dirt. Daisy apologized over and over, but Lincoln insisted that it was alright; he was so intrigued by this beautiful brown-haired maiden who had come running into his life. So he asked her for her name and Daisy panicked. She knew that this sweet squire who happily went back to polishing his knight's shield would never treat her normally if he knew she was the princess, so she looked up in the air for answers and then told him her name was Skye and that she was the daughter of a knight. And over those few weeks Lincoln spent at the palace, they fell in love, but they thought they would never see each other again. And then Grant and Daisy came to visit a year and a half ago, and, at the banquet, Daisy and Lincoln saw each other across the crowded hall, the truth came out, and they've been together ever since."

Fitz had to smile, remembering that night at the banquet, their entire group of friends standing there, confused, as Lincoln and Daisy embraced, staring at each other with face-splitting grins. Daisy had told him later that night, the first night she ever spent at the palace, that she and Lincoln were meant to be, and more than nine months later, on Daisy's last night at the palace, Fitz realized that there was someone he felt like that about too. Someone who had just gotten engaged to another man. Fitz's smile fell instantly.

"Lincoln and Daisy thought they would never see each other again," Dame Isobel continued, her voice still soft, "but true love had other plans. There's no doubting it. It just is."

"And Jemma and Will, is that true love?" Fitz asked, the words ripping out of him thoughtlessly, bitterly, pain in every syllable. He turned his eyes to the ground.

Dame Isobel was silent for a moment. "I don't know about Jemma and Will," she said finally.

Fitz looked up. He'd never heard Dame Isobel, or any of their friends, say anything negative about Will, and, what's more, he'd never heard Dame Isobel say anything negative about a couple who was together. Bobbi and Lance were always perfect and so were Mack and Lady Mackenzie and even he and Jemma for however brief a time, but this was… this was something different.

"I thought with true love you just… knew," Fitz said, confused.

Dame Isobel glanced over at him, a small smile on her face. "Well there's your answer."

And then she stood up and left Fitz sitting alone in the lab. He was grateful that Dame Isobel, defender of true love, didn't think Jemma was making the right decision in marrying Will, but he didn't know what he could ever do with that information. He couldn't just go up to Jemma and tell her that Will wasn't her true love, but he, Fitz, was. He had already worked so hard to get Jemma to be merely indifferent toward him, let alone like him. He was glad that he still had his friends, but this was one thing he really couldn't see a way out of.

Fitz distanced himself a bit from Jemma and Will over the next few days, the pain of seeing them apparently happily engaged too much for Fitz to deal with, but, luckily, the king had plans which unintentionally saved Fitz from his current situation: the cavalry was to move out by the end of the week.

It seemed the incidents up north were escalating, and apparently there were problems at the borders in Grant's kingdom, so all of the cavalrymen from both armies who had been camped at the castle and in the surrounding towns for the winter were to be called up and moved out as quickly as possible.

This meant heartfelt goodbyes to Mack, Lance, and Lincoln (Daisy, particularly distraught, since she had already spent so much time away from her fiancé the previous year), and, thankfully, on Fitz's part, Will.

The whole group saw the men off, Fitz distracting himself so he didn't have to witness the goodbyes between Jemma and Will, but the king called Fitz over before they all left.

"Fitz, I know you asked to stay here for the winter," he began, and Fitz's heart sank instantly. The winter was over. He was going to be asked to leave.

The King continued, "but I would be so grateful if you remained here longer. If we're fighting Maveth, it will be good to have someone who knows so much about curses on hand in case something like what happened to Bobbi happens again."

Fitz could barely conceal his relief. "I would be honored, Your Majesty."

The King nodded and called to his men, leaving Fitz standing alone.

Suddenly someone grabbed him and shoved him behind a pillar. It was Will. Of course.

"Listen Fitz," the man hissed, the pair of them out of the line of sight of the women inside or any of the men mounting their horses in the yard, "you stay away from Jemma. She's mine, and she doesn't want you around. If you try anything, I can make you pay for it."

Fitz was a bit afraid that the larger and taller man would "make him pay" right now, but Fitz swallowed his fear, needing to defend the woman he loved. "Jemma Simmons doesn't belong to anyone. And the King is waiting." Fitz jerked his head toward the men assembling in the yard.

Will glared at Fitz for a moment before giving him one last shove against the pillar and storming away. A moment later Will was mounting his horse and waving sweetly at Jemma as though he was the most innocent man in the world.

Fitz took a deep breath. Threats aside, at least he didn't have to be around Will anymore. Maybe things would go better with Jemma without Will casting a shadow over everything.

Fitz struggled slightly with so much of the group gone. He and Jemma were now nearly always in the same circle of conversation, which was often unbearable since all he wanted in the world was to talk to her but if he came on too strong he would lose the progress that he had made.

Jemma, for her part, took Will's departure well. Fitz knew Jemma better than anyone else in the world, and he could tell that despite her excitement about being engaged, she seemed almost relieved to see Will go. Fitz knew he could be reading too much into it, but, regardless, she certainly wasn't playing the part of the broken-hearted woman whose fiancé has gone to war.

That, of course, was Daisy, her usual excitement dimmed significantly by Lincoln's departure. With her fiancé gone, she took to spending more time with Jemma, even coming down to the lab on occasion, which Fitz certainly didn't mind since Daisy was much more likely to engage him in conversation than Jemma was.

"I just miss him so much," Daisy sighed one afternoon from where she sat across from Jemma.

In the week or so since the men had left, Fitz had gravitated back to his old spot where Will had been working, and it had almost completely become his own space again.

Jemma had clearly noticed, but she hadn't commented, much to Fitz's relief.

"Oh yes," Jemma replied to Daisy absently, "it's odd without them all here."

"Don't you miss Will so terribly?" Daisy asked her friend with a drama Fitz knew was genuine. No one could ever doubt Daisy's love for Lincoln.

"Yes, of course," Jemma replied, but her words weren't like Daisy's, filled with love and longing. They were just words, little emotion behind them. Of course Jemma herself wasn't like Daisy, but Fitz could recall Jemma sitting in front of a fireplace at an inn telling him that she was completely in love with him, with nothing but love and happiness in every syllable. That Jemma of nearly four months ago was, by all appearances, far more in love than the Jemma that sat near him in the lab.

That thought alone made Fitz smile to himself as he worked silently at his bench.

"You do love him don't you," Daisy asked slowly, unsure. "I mean it's true love like Lincoln and I, right?"

Jemma looked uncomfortable. "I don't know if I necessarily believe in true love, but, I suppose it is…" She shrugged.

Fitz raised his eyebrows slightly, his eyes still on the table in front of him. This was a far cry from the Jemma who had confessed her love for him in this very lab.

Daisy seemed unconvinced, but instead of continuing to question Jemma, she turned to Fitz.

"What do you think about true love, Fitz?" she asked curiously.

Jemma seemed almost annoyed that Daisy had decided to bring Fitz into this, but that annoyance was nothing compared to the hatred of December, so Fitz paid it no mind as he turned to Daisy.

"I think it's the most magical and beautiful thing in this entire world," Fitz replied without hesitation. "I had true love once, and though it ended in tragedy, not a day goes by that I don't think back on it with gratitude and happiness." He paused for a moment, smiling to himself. "I would do it all again in a heartbeat. Really, I would give up the whole world to have that again."

"That's lovely, Fitz," Daisy said in reply, tears welling up in her eyes, but Fitz's attention was focused on Jemma.

Their eyes met and for just the briefest moment, those eyes were the same eyes Fitz had looked into as Jemma ran into his arms months ago on the field in front of the fortress, eyes so filled with adoration and excitement and utter joy. For that instant, they were the eyes of a woman who loved him beyond anything else.

In a flash it was gone, and Jemma turned away, her face returning to the mask of confusion that it so often was now when she was around Fitz.

But Fitz was left with something that he hadn't really, genuinely felt since he had arrived at the palace and found himself entirely forgotten by his friends: hope. If Jemma could remember him, even for just that brief moment, then maybe, just maybe, he could get her back.

A/N: Thanks for reading! Reviews are so appreciated!