A/N: This really should have been up ages ago, but life's been crazy the past couple weeks. Just two chapters to go and hopefully they won't be too painful to write after whatever happens in the finale Tuesday.

Enjoy!

"Jemma, can you help me with this?" Fitz asked absently in the lab one afternoon a few days later. He was holding a splint in place as he let it set, but he needed to attach another piece and he'd run out of hands.

"Got it," Jemma replied, stepping into Fitz's space and adding the last piece without even asking for instruction.

"Thanks," Fitz said gratefully, setting the now completed splint down on the lab table. A messenger from the King had arrived the day before with news that the cavalry had gotten into a skirmish with a group of Maveth's men and that several of the cavalrymen had been injured and the supplies for the battlefield hospital had been lost in the struggle, meaning that Fitz and Jemma's services were needed for procuring bandages and other medical paraphernalia.

Jemma gave Fitz an odd look before she turned to the ground, her face a mask of confusion.

Fitz suddenly realized that Jemma had just helped him as easily as she would have months ago, back when they were partners, best friends, entirely in love. Fitz allowed himself the smallest smile before he returned to his work, letting Jemma figure out her reaction herself.

A moment later, she was back to work too, but this was just the beginning. As they settled in to their routine, the boundary that had existed between them since Fitz arrived began to blur. For moments here and there Fitz almost forgot he wasn't working with a Jemma that had been his partner for their entire lives, and as Jemma quickly jumped in to help him whenever he needed her, it seemed that Jemma was experiencing something similar.

Her expression kept shifting from satisfaction at the work they were doing to confusion and even something like fear at how naturally she worked with Fitz.

Fitz hated seeing her uncomfortable like this, but in those little moment of satisfaction, the Jemma that stood next to him was his Jemma and not the one Maveth had stolen, and Fitz couldn't let himself give that up.

And anyone could see that he and Jemma worked better together. They had a large pile of medical supplies ready to be taken to the cavalry in just a few days, much to the appreciation of the men who had come for them and to the astonishment of the staff of the infirmary who had assumed that the whole operation would take much longer.

"We're very lucky you came to join us, Master Fitz," Doctor Garner said as they helped load supplies into the cart the men were taking back with them. "You and Miss Simmons work so well together."

Fitz had flashed a smile at Jemma that she had almost returned. Almost.

Armed with the new hope that he could get Jemma back, Fitz adopted the strategy of trying to spend as much time with her as possible in the hopes that one-on-one exposure would be the best way to get his former best friend to remember him. Without Will around, there was less negativity directed at Fitz, and Jemma actually had to interact with him rather than just whispering off in the corner with her fiancé.

And so when Fitz decided that he wanted to look further into his mother's illness, he turned to Jemma.

"How much do you know about the Queen's sickness?" Fitz asked hesitantly one morning.

Jemma's neutral expression turned sad almost instantly. "Not much. We've tried everything."

Fitz nodded. "She's cursed like Bobbi was, but worse. I've never seen any accounts of curses like this where things turned out okay, but I haven't read everything." He looked up at Jemma. "Would you come look with me? We'll get through it twice as fast together." He knew this was a long shot, but he had to hope.

Jemma stared at him for a moment before nodding slowly. "Yes, of course. Anything to help the Queen."

Fitz couldn't stop a wide smile from spreading across his face as he led the way down the corridor to the library.

The morning turned to afternoon, and Fitz and Jemma read through book after book on curses and sorcerers, and Fitz wondered if maybe the subject matter would jog Jemma's memory, but he had no such luck.

Which isn't to say that the afternoon was a waste. On the contrary – he and Jemma started making a list of ways to treat curses in case anything happened to the soldiers out fighting Maveth.

"Basil if they can't speak," Jemma said out loud as she wrote it down on the list.

"And cinnamon if they can't hear," Fitz added, taking the quill Jemma handed him and writing it down.

"There's some first-hand accounts over here," Jemma said, picking up a stack of parchment. "I'll go through those."

Fitz had insisted that she take the armchair (their armchair, he thought to himself), but as Jemma read through the letters and pamphlets from the stack, she kept finding interesting accounts of curses that she would say out loud, as though she needed to share them with someone, and Fitz would end up practically sitting in the chair with her as she showed him what she had found. Fitz knew that Jemma would likely have made these observations to anyone, but he could tell that the fact that Fitz entirely understood everything she was saying and knew exactly what was important about the pieces of information she shared with him was very much appreciated by his friend. Until she realized that she was talking to Fitz at which point things would get moderately uncomfortable and Fitz would move away. But then she would find something else, and it would happen all over again.

"Fitz! Look at this!"

That was the first time Jemma had actually used his name and not just started speaking excitedly to the air.

Fitz tried to push his excitement at that fact out of the way as he hurried over to see what Jemma had found.

"This man's daughter was cursed like the Queen was," Jemma skimmed through the account, "but he says here that even though nothing could undo the curse, if the moonlight came in through her window and landed on her, she was more peaceful and could even talk sometimes if she was awake."

"Why is it always moonlight?" Fitz muttered under his breath, remembering a dark night in the forest sitting up in a tree with Jemma.

"What was that?" Jemma asked, curiously.

Fitz shook his head quickly. "Nothing. But we should go see if the King would consider moving the Queen to one of the bedrooms with more windows that overlook the fields rather than the forest so no trees block the light."

Jemma narrowed her eyes slightly. "How do you know what the bedrooms overlook?"

Fitz paled. "Um, I'm, er, just assuming. Based on what I've seen wandering around the palace."

Jemma nodded, but she still looked unsure, a look which only intensified as she realized that Fitz was actually sharing the chair with her, both of them having been so distracted by the discovery that they hadn't noticed their seating arrangement.

Fitz sprang away from her instantly. "Should we go?"

"Of course," Jemma replied, almost flustered, as she stood up, and they left the library together, Fitz almost taking Jemma's hand for a moment before he stopped himself.

Regardless of the progress he had made, they weren't there yet. Not even close.

But their research had necessitated the gathering of herbs and flowers that grew down by the river and by the wood near the observatory, so a few afternoons later, the now-March sun shining down on them, they found themselves outside with baskets wandering around the grounds and identifying plants as though they were 8 years old again. Fitz just wished Jemma could remember.

"The river back home looks a lot like this," Fitz said casually. "I fell in once when our tutor was having us look at tadpoles. My… friend… she laughed for weeks over it." Fitz glanced over at said friend to see what she would say.

Unexpectedly, Jemma smiled slightly at Fitz's story. "My tutor took us down here to look at tadpoles too. I don't think I ever fell in though."

"Of course you wouldn't fall in," Fitz said unable to help himself. "You have such 'impeccable balance.'"

A 9-year-old Jemma had used that phrase to describe herself just after the Fitz-falling-in-the-river incident.

Jemma looked at him oddly. "How did you know about that?"

"Lance mentioned it," Fitz lied smoothly. Lance, of course, was the perfect scapegoat since he wasn't around the palace currently but he knew all about Fitz and Jemma's childhood antics, having participated in some himself.

Jemma rolled her eyes. "Lance needs to stop telling stories about me."

Fitz happened to see the observatory out of the corner of his eye, and he suddenly had an idea. "He's not the only one I've heard about you from."

"Is Mack in on this too? And Daisy?" Jemma asked, exasperated.

Fitz shook his head, trying to hold back his grin. "Actually, this was before I'd even come to the castle."

Jemma stared at him, confused.

"I was staying at an inn the night before I arrived," Fitz explained, a smile spreading across his face as he spoke, "and I was sitting by the fire to warm up, and I got to talking with the man next to me. He said he was a teacher working for some prominent noble families in the area, but he mentioned that he had worked as a tutor at the palace some years ago, and that he particularly had taught a young girl who was, I believe he said 'horribly rude and not at all grateful for the opportunity given to her.'"

"Master Sitwell!" Jemma said angrily, dropping her basket to the ground. "How dare he say that! He was a terrible teacher, Fitz. I wasn't-"

Fitz held up his hand to stop her, already laughing. "Of course I didn't believe him, Jemma. The man was clearly delusional. And he decided to teach me a thing or two about astronomy, which was the most inaccurate lesson I've ever received in any subject. What I don't understand is how he was ever allowed to teach at the palace in the first place."

Jemma laughed. "It was so terrible, you're so lucky that's all the time you ever had to spend with him. I wasn't even eleven, and he kept trying to ask me why I wasn't 'accomplished.'" Jemma's words were laced with disdain. "Of course by that point I probably already knew as much about the world as Sitwell did, but he was just dreadful."

"Please tell me you said something to get him to shut up," Fitz said, knowing that Jemma loved talking about this particular moment in her childhood.

Jemma smiled smugly. "One evening I told him that I thought he was meant to teach astronomy and not gender roles."

Fitz laughed genuinely and was beyond thrilled when Jemma joined in.

"That's fantastic," Fitz said through his laughter.

"It was a proud moment for me," Jemma said, her smile almost shy as he looked at Fitz.

"It was brilliant," Fitz affirmed with a nod.

The pair stared at each other for a moment, but then Jemma's eyes grew distant again, and she turned away and picked up her basket.

Fitz kept smiling the entire afternoon.

"So what have you two been working on?" Dame Isobel asked one evening the following week.

It was later than usual for them to be together, but everyone was there, except the men off with the cavalry, naturally. Fitz and Jemma were talking with Dame Isobel and Daisy as Lady Mackenzie and Bobbi sat together on the sofa on the other side of the room. It had been nearly two months since Bobbi had been recovered, but she was still tiring more easily than normal, which was worrying Fitz and which he knew would have sent Lance into some sort of spiral if he had been there to see it.

"We've been trying to prepare defenses against curses," Jemma began.

"In case Maveth does anything to any of the soldiers," Fitz cut in.

"A lot of the cures are quite simple-"

"Just a flower or an herb-"

"And a lot of them grow around the palace-"

"So we've been replenishing stores-"

"And making lists for the future-"

"I think we're fairly well prepared at present," Fitz finished.

Dame Isobel and Daisy stared at them, their eyebrows raised, matching grins on their faces.

"What?" Jemma asked, confused.

Fitz suddenly realized – he and Jemma had just finished each other's sentences like they'd been doing since they were kids. Neither of them had even noticed, it had been so natural.

"Nothing, dear," Dame Isobel replied, throwing a significant look at Fitz that he pretended to ignore.

Daisy quickly distracted Jemma with a question about flowers, and Jemma moved past Dame Isobel and Daisy's odd expressions.

"Could I borrow you for a moment, Isobel?" Lady Mackenzie asked, and as Dame Isobel followed Lady Mackenzie to the kitchen, Fitz slipped away from Daisy and Jemma to go sit with Bobbi.

"How are you feeling, Bobbi?" Fitz asked as he sat down across from her.

Bobbi shrugged. "A little tired, but otherwise I'm well."

Fitz smiled. "Good. I'm not sure why you haven't completely recovered, but hopefully we'll figure that out soon."

"Don't worry about me, Fitz," Bobbi brushed away Fitz's concerns. "Maggie was just telling me that Mack said the men are on their way home, so I'll get to see Lance. And I've had worse. Two months ago I was practically dead and nearly a month before that I was attacked at that fortress."

Fitz laughed slightly, but then he realized something. With everything going on with Bobbi's recovery, the Queen's illness, and all of he and Jemma's research on curses, Fitz had stopped trying to figure out everything that had happened at the fortress the day everyone had forgotten him. He had never even asked Bobbi about what had happened to her.

"Actually, Bobbi, do you remember what happened at the fortress?" Fitz asked, trying to keep his words casual.

Bobbi was silent for a moment, clearly thinking hard. "Not entirely," she said finally, "but some of it."

"What do you remember?"

"Grant and I came in together through a back door," she said slowly, "I went first and Grant was watching out behind me. But the next thing I knew, everything went black."

"So you never actually saw Will?" Fitz said, his eyes narrowed.

Bobbi shook her head. "No. The first time I'd even heard of Will was in the infirmary after I woke up. Grant never mentioned him. Apparently he was undercover inside helping Jemma, and Grant was protecting him by not saying anything."

Undercover inside… Something about Bobbi's words struck a chord in Fitz's mind. Almost instantly he was transported back to that day. He was standing beside Bobbi and Grant listening at the crack in the fortress door.

"She's a very pretty thing," said an older man.

"You should be nicer to her, Malick, she's smart as well as pretty." A younger voice, a familiar voice.

"Didn't seem so smart when I snatched her last night," said Malick.

"She hasn't begged or wept or any of those typical maiden things, though. She's been very defiant." The younger voice again.

"Feisty."

"Don't get any ideas, Malick. The Master said that the girl's engaged, or as good as, and he's really after her fiancé. Once the fiancé's out of the way, she'll be free to find someone else."

"And you think that'll be you, Will? Got yourself a crush?"

"She likes me already, which is far more than can be said of any of you. And I have a plan."

Will. Fitz had heard his voice before. Inside the fortress, plotting to steal Jemma from Fitz with Maveth's consent.

But certainly Grant would have told he and Bobbi that Will was one of his men. Fitz had been so upset by the comments they had overheard, and knowing that one of them was on their side would have given Fitz peace of mind. Even if he wanted to protect Will, Grant still should have said something. And besides, waiting for Will to sneak Jemma out that night was a much better plan than Grant and Bobbi going in and trying to find her themselves in broad daylight when Maveth's men were just in the next room.

Unless…

"Fitz? Are you okay?" Bobbi's voice broke through Fitz's thoughts.

Fitz shook his head quickly. "Yeah, sorry, I was just thinking… excuse me." He stood up and walked into the next room, which was mercifully empty. He collapsed into a chair, his thoughts on one person: Grant Ward.

If Grant had deliberately avoiding mentioning Will, then Fitz was left with one conclusion: Grant had to be working for Maveth. It was the only explanation. Fitz recalled he and Grant's meeting two months before when Grant had seemed afraid of just the sight of Fitz. Perhaps Maveth had done something so the men working for him still remembered Fitz, and Grant was worried that Fitz returning to the castle would do something to hurt Maveth…

And if Grant was working for Maveth, Will was too. Of course Will knowing who Fitz was and having been promised Jemma by Maveth made all of his threats against Fitz and his reluctance to help Bobbi, the only person who could have possibly incriminated him, make perfect sense.

Fitz quickly began to piece together what had happened at the fortress. Grant must have knocked out Bobbi; he might have even been the one who cursed her. Grant had insisted that Fitz stay away from the fortress while they went to get Jemma. Of course Grant would know that this was the exact situation where Fitz would forget everything and kiss Jemma just because he was so grateful that she was alive. Grant had played him.

For months Fitz had thought of Grant as someone he couldn't necessarily trust; even Daisy had had little good to say about her brother. But then Grant had been nice about Jemma, and he'd sat with them at the campfire… to distract them all from Jemma's absence so that Maveth's henchman Malick could take her. Of course! And then Fitz had tried to follow her, but Grant had come too, and he made Fitz stop to sleep to slow him down. Bobbi had agreed with Grant's actions, but that had been out of concern for Fitz's health; Grant hat no reason to care. Grant must have been working for Maveth the whole time. Fitz suddenly remembered that Grant had even disappeared that last day before Jemma had been kidnapped. He could have been off meeting with Maveth or one of Maveth's men.

The pieces gradually fit themselves into place, and Fitz was left with just one more question: why. What did Grant have to gain from Fitz's downfall and the rise of an evil sorcerer? Grant had a kingdom too. An evil sorcerer could terrorize Grant's land just as easily as he could terrorize any other kingdom.

"Fitz, is everything okay?"

It was Daisy.

"Bobbi said you got all weird in the middle of your conversation and you just… left…"

Fitz paid no attention to what his friend was saying. "Daisy. What kind of problems do you have in your kingdom right now? Is there anything that your brother would need help with?"

Daisy stared at him, clearly not expecting Fitz's question, but Fitz didn't move.

"Uh, I don't think so?" Daisy said finally as she realized that Fitz was completely serious. "I mean, there's been that stalemate up north of us for a few years now, but that should blow over…"

Of course: the war! Grant had even asked Fitz if he and the King would consider helping him, and Fitz had said they were committed to peace. So it seemed that Grant, in the absence of human friends, had turned to Maveth for help. If Fitz was out of the picture, then once the King was dead, the kingdom would collapse without an heir. Grant could conquer at least two additional kingdoms, and all it took was handing over Fitz.

Fitz couldn't believe he'd been so stupid. Grant was working for Maveth. Will was working for Maveth… And if Bobbi was right, Grant and Will were coming back to the palace soon... which meant...

Jemma.

"Um, Fitz?"

"Sorry!" Fitz found Daisy staring at him, partly concerned and partly confused. "I just realized something…"

Without another word, he left his friend and returned to the sitting room, looking all around for Jemma, but not seeing her anywhere.

"She went down to the lab to do something, I'm not sure what," Dame Isobel said before Fitz could even ask after Jemma.

Fitz nodded gratefully and practically ran out the door.

He raced through the corridors and down to the basement where he practically ran into Jemma by the entrance to the lab.

"Fitz?" Jemma said, taking a step back in surprise. "I just had to make a note of something before I forgot. I was about to come back up. Is everything okay?'

Even with what Fitz had just realized, he couldn't help but register how normal this felt – Jemma telling him what she was doing, making sure everything was okay – but that wasn't why he was here.

"Jemma, Will's not who he says he is," Fitz burst out, still catching his breath.

"Excuse me?" Jemma folded her arms, closing herself off from Fitz at just the mention of her fiancé.

"Just listen to me, Jemma, please," Fitz said, taking a deep breath. "Will's working for Maveth. Don't ask me how I know, but I do. This was all part of the plan when Maveth kidnapped you."

Jemma opened her mouth, but Fitz stopped her.

"Mack told me about that the day I got here," he brushed away her unasked question, "but you have to listen to me. Will's dangerous, you're not safe, and the King could be killed at any moment."

"What? Will's part of King Grant's cavalry, Fitz," Jemma said slowly.

Fitz shook his head, his eyes not leaving Jemma. "No, he's not. Grant never told anyone about Will; there were no spies… except Grant. He's working for Maveth too. He knocked out Bobbi, and the plan was to make sure Bobbi didn't wake up in case she remembered anything suspicious, but we messed that up for them. Will threatened me after that day in the infirmary. He didn't want Bobbi to get better; it could have ruined everything." Fitz stared at his friend, the woman he loved more than anything in the world, his eyes pleading as much as his words. "Please believe me, Jemma. They're working for Maveth. You're not safe. Please." He reached out for her hand.

Jemma yanked it away from him, her eyes widening. "Oh my God… I remember you."

Fitz's heart leapt to his throat. "Jemma…"

"Your body was lying in the field that day by the fortress," she said, her voice terrified. "You were lying there beside me, and I don't know where you came from. It was you. You're working for Maveth."

Fitz exhaled. Of course it was too good to be true.

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