Chapter Three

Sorry this is very dialogue heavy.

"God. Jemma," Skye breathed. "Do you... do you feel the same way?"

Jemma raised her hazel eyes to Skye's face, seeming to study her before responding. "I didn't know. But seeing him like that, and thinking he might never wake up..." she wrung her hands anxiously. "It brought back all these feelings I used to have when we were at the Academy, only... stronger. He's always been more than my best friend but there are protocols. It would have been messy if we were involved. We'd agreed..."

Skye's jaw dropped and she interrupted her friend's frantic speech. "Wait. You felt like this before? At the Academy?" Jemma nodded. "What did you agree?"

"To be friends. Just friends."

Skye's eyes considered Jemma's face carefully. She'd had no idea that FitzSimmons had ever consciously contemplated being more than friends, let alone that they'd actually discussed it. She wasn't sure how comfortable Jemma felt talking about this, but she had to ask.

"So... were you ever more?"

Simmons flushed and busied herself around the kitchen again, doing anything she could to avoid Skye's intense stare. "Kind of."

"Kind of? What does that mean?!"

Jemma sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she was going to talk about this, a subject she had tried to bury and forget. She had never told anyone; she and Fitz had never mentioned it again after their... agreement. It had been fine, they had carried on as friends and most of the time she didn't even think about what had nearly happened between them all those years ago. It was just sometimes, when he held her gaze just that little bit too long, or when she felt him breathe in the scent of her hair as he hugged her, she'd let herself believe maybe there could be more. She'd swallowed her feelings and smiled at him like always, like he was just her best friend. But then he'd said those beautiful things and pushed that bloody button, and her nicely downtrodden feelings had come rushing to the surface; a flood of emotions exploding through a dam.

"There was a small group of us that were friends at the Academy, we used to go around together and meet up at the Boiler Room. Of course, I spent most of my time with Fitz... at first we'd just been partnered on a project but then we kept working together because we got on so well." Jemma seated herself on a stool next to Skye, fiddling with the frayed sleeve of her jumper. "We started seeing each other outside class and... well, we never looked back really. People used to tease us about getting together but it was never anything more than that." Jemma cleared her throat. "Anyway, he used to just laugh it off, and I tried to ignore my... feelings."

Skye raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything; although Jemma seemed uncomfortable she could tell that once the biochemist has started she'd actually wanted to tell her. She didn't want to interrupt.

"It wasn't anything serious, just a crush. I mean, Fitz isn't exactly bad looking is he? When you spend enough time with someone you're bound to feel... something. But I didn't think he felt the same way so I kept quiet, I never said anything. Then, one day after our final exams we were all sitting in the pub talking about the end of term ball," Simmons bit her lip nervously. "We had always planned to go as a group. Then Fletch, he was one of Fitz's engineering friends, joked that we should go together as a couple. He said we'd regret it if we carried on ignoring our feelings because after the Academy we might never see each other again."

"I thought you and Fitz were at SciOps together after the Academy?" Skye munched a biscuit as she interrupted, her confusion evident.

"We did, but we hadn't heard back from our applications by then so there were no guarantees. I just remember the look on Fitz's face; I'd never seen him look like that. He got up and left really quickly without saying anything, so I followed him. When I caught up with him we didn't talk about it, we just headed back to his room. And then..."

Skye widened her eyes again, if it was even possible for them to grow any larger. When Jemma didn't speak immediately it was all the hacker could do not to shake her. "And then?!"

Jemma sighed. "He... he kept looking at me while we were watching the tele, so I turned to him to ask what was going on... and he kissed me."

"He kissed you?!" Skye gasped. She couldn't imagine Fitz working up the courage to make the first move on anyone, let alone on Jemma. "Did you kiss him back?"

Jemma nodded, her face was bright pink now and a smile tugged at her lips. "Skye, it was amazing."

"So what happened?" Skye was puzzled. If they had felt this way and admitted it back at the Academy why had they been dancing around each other like this on the Bus?

"For the next few days it was wonderful. We agreed we would go to the dance together like Fletch said, and that we'd tell everyone we were together while we were there. Leo said it would be the perfect end to the perfect year," Jemma smiled softly but then her face fell.

"The day before the dance we got our offers from SciOps. We were so happy we were going together. Then Fitz read the policies in the Welcome Pack- there was one against 'fraternisation,'" Simmons snarled the word and made air quotes with her fingers. "There was no way we could be together and work together."

Skye's stomach dropped at the look of pain on her friend's face. She realised that the scientists had chosen friendship and a working relationship over the possibility of something romantic. They must have gone through months, if not years, of ignoring their feelings without breathing a word to anyone else.

"Couldn't you have kept it a secret?" she whispered, trying to disguise the pity in her voice. She knew the answer even as the words left her mouth.

Simmons cocked her head disbelievingly at the computer whiz. "Yes, because secret keeping is clearly my forte." Her sarcastic tone couldn't hide the sadness behind her voice.

"So you just stopped? Just like that?"

"We had to. We couldn't risk being separated. Even if we couldn't be together we still wanted to work together. He is the best partner I've ever had."

Skye shook her head, still not quite believing what she had heard. "So... what happens now? S.H.I.E.L.D. technically doesn't exist- there are no protocols anymore."

The biochemist shrugged her shoulders and looked wistfully down the corridor in the direction of her sleeping partner's room. "I have no idea."