Prompt from Anon (based on a "send me numbers with sentences" meme on Tumblr): "Why the hell are you bleeding?!" and/or "I need you to leave."

First of all, I was going to wait until later to post this, but I'm super bored tonight so I'm going to go ahead and post it anyway. Second of all, I'm a super indecisive person so instead of choosing between the two prompts, I decided to combine them.

I wasn't sure if I could get away with a T rating on this drabble, so I'm going to put an M rating on this one because it gets a bit dark. Also trigger warning for self-abuse and cutting, so don't read it if those things make you uncomfortable.

"Jemma, are you okay?" Fitz banged on the bathroom door and then paused as he waited for a reply. "You've been in there for a while now and I can't finish the ICER modifications on my own."

Jemma hurriedly stashed her belongings in a makeup bag before hiding it in a cabinet below the sink. She glanced at herself in the mirror, searching for any other telltale signs of a previous crying spell, and she sighed in relief when she didn't find any. Besides the twenty minutes spent in the bathroom, all evidence had been erased that she had been doing something other than what was expected from one taking an impromptu bathroom break.

Running her fingers one last time through her hair, she opened the door and managed to smile a bit too enthusiastically at her partner. "Everything's fine. Girl problems. You wouldn't understand."

Jemma used to be a terrible liar, but she had gotten better at it as she spent more time with the highly-trained agents on Coulson's team. And it wasn't like she had just lied to him completely, she rationalized. Technically, it was two lies and one truth: he wouldn't understand. He wouldn't possibly be able to comprehend what she was feeling at this very moment in time, so it was best to keep him out of the whole mess that currently was her mental health until he had no reason to worry about her anymore. Fitz already had enough on his plate as it stood, with inhuman Ward on the run on Earth and him knowing that Coulson was the one who allowed the inhuman takeover to happen in the first place, so why make his burden any worse?

Besides, she was a big girl; she could deal with it. If she could survive six and a half months on a barren, deserted planet, then she could surely keep her own thoughts and feelings in check. Right?

She chewed on her lip as she brushed past him, her eyesight set firmly on the task at hand. "So I was thinking we should add a more concentrated amount of dendrotoxin to the original formula so that the intended target will stay incapacitated for a bit longer. That way, in the case that they pose an immediate, dangerous threat such as an Inhuman like Lash, it would give us more time to warn people and evacuate-"

"Jemma."

The sudden lowering of Fitz's voice made her freeze in place. "What's that on your sleeve?"

With her back still facing him, she grabbed at the sleeve of her long-sleeved white blouse and all the air seemed to evaporate from her lungs. Oh no. One of her previous cuts must have somehow opened up again without her knowing. "It's-it's nothing," she stuttered. "I must've cut myself on something on the lab bench."

"Turn around," Fitz ordered, his gaze still transfixed on her bloody sleeve.

Reluctantly, Jemma did as she was told and he examined her injury carefully. "Your sleeve isn't ripped," he stated. "The cut is underneath your shirt. And-" His eyes widened at the amount of red spreading across her wrist and he gasped. "You're bleeding really heavily, so the cut must be deep."

His fingers moved to unbutton the cuff of the sleeve when a cold hand stopped him. "No! Don't!"

Startled, Fitz met her panicked eyes, causing his voice to become even more frantic than it had been before. "Jemma, I don't understand. Why the hell are you bleeding?!"

"I can't tell you!" she yelped, pulling her hand out of his grasp and hissing as the cut she had just bandaged in the bathroom rubbed against the band-aid.

"Why not?" Fitz retorted. "Did someone hurt you? Because if they did, I'll give them hell."

"No, no one hurt me, Fitz." Silence overtook her as she averted her eyes to the ground.

Jemma saw the color drain from his face as the realization hit him. "You…you did this to yourself?" he choked out.

"I…" She looked around frantically, calculating her escape. "I can't do this with you right now."

He stood there, stupefied, as she sprinted past him, effortlessly navigating the numerous twists and turns of the hallways that ultimately led to her room. What she didn't count on, however, was Fitz being right on her heels the whole time.

"Jemma!" he called out, screeching to a halt next to her as she reached for the door knob. "I can't just ignore this. Please, tell me what's going on. I want to be there for you."

His pleas sent an ache spiraling through her chest, but her fingers tightened on the door knob nonetheless. "I need you to leave, Fitz. Just please let me be."

"Like hell I won't!" Normally when she wasn't feeling well, he'd let her go, but the thought of Jemma hurting herself sent chills down his spine and a fear he hadn't felt since his time on Maveth held a steady grip on his heart. "Not this time."

"Fine! You want to see what I've been doing so badly?" she retorted, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, and a lone drop managed to slip out as she yanked her sleeve down violently, revealing a path of horizontal cuts forming a ladder down her arm. "Now you know."

A small whimper escaped Fitz's throat as he cradled her arm in his hands. "Why?" His voice cracked as his own eyes started to water. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"It's…" Jemma paused, tracing the cut closest to her elbow with her fingertip. "It's the only way I can make the pain go away," she finally admitted.

"-By replacing the emotional pain with a physical one." Fitz nodded in understanding as he tried to regain his composure.

"Yes. I deserve this, Fitz. I killed so many people by letting Lash loose on those Hydra agents. I left Will to die because I convinced him to come with me to find you. I tried to prevent Skye- now Daisy- from changing into the person she was meant to become."

She gulped and finally released the tears that she had been holding back. "And I let you struggle through your hypoxia alone when you needed me most."

Fitz took a step forward and placed his hands on her shoulders. "Lash killed all of those people, not you. Will made that decision to come with you. You didn't force either of them to do the things they did. It was their decision, not yours. And I've forgiven you for all of those things that happened in the past."

He stopped briefly to wipe a droplet off the bottom of her chin. "You need to learn to forgive yourself, Jemma." Sniffling, he dragged his thumb up to cup her cheek. "I can't watch you suffer like this."

"I can't help it, Fitz!" she exclaimed. "I know it's wrong and I know it's not good for me. My mum told me all the time that the worst thing you could do was hurt yourself. But once I started…I couldn't stop. It's like I can feel all of the rage, the sadness, the guilt spill out of me when I do it. Nothing else I've done helps!"

"You could've came to me. I have more experience with this than you think."

"Really?" she stammered. "How so?"

"I had a cousin who cut himself all the time when I was little. He needed a sounding board, so I listened. He felt a lot of the same things you did, but his therapist taught him a trick to make him stop cutting."

Fitz continued to hold Jemma's arm as he fumbled around in his pants pocket for a marker. "Watch." Paying close attention to the freshness of her cuts, he traced a marker around the one she had been eyeing near her elbow. The black ink stopped and started at the boundaries of her cut, avoiding the exposed and inflamed areas until it formed a name: Fitz.

"He told me that seeing these names on his arm reminded him of the people who still cared about him, his support system, and the memories that came along with the names were good enough to make him stop cutting," he explained. "Pascal knew that he didn't want his loved ones seeing him do this himself and that gave him incentive to heal, to move past the things that were eating him up inside."

Jemma wordlessly traced the now-dry ink on her arm. How had she not thought of something like this before? "You've told me about everyone in your family, Fitz. Why didn't you ever mention Pascal?"

Fitz shrugged. "He's gone through a lot with my one aunt and uncle and I wanted to respect his privacy."

He proceeded to write different names over her remaining cuts. Daisy. Bobbi. Coulson. May. Mack. Hunter. Mum. Dad. And finally, Will. "He wouldn't want you to do this either, Jemma," he murmured, running his fingers over the band-aid smudged with black ink. "I know he cared about you. You were probably the best thing to ever happen to him on Maveth."

Jemma couldn't help but stare at Fitz in awe as he continued. "I'm not going to take the razor blades or the knives or whatever you use out of your hands because I know it won't help. But I'm going to be here for you whether you like it or not. So there."

Fitz watched her face crumple and she was suddenly pressing herself up against him, sobbing in the crook as she wrapped her arms around him tightly. "You're amazing," she croaked against his skin. "Thank you."

He reciprocated the motion, for fear that she might fall apart if he didn't. When he finally let her go, he took in a deep breath and ran his fingers through his blonde curls. "Well, I'm going to tell Coulson that you weren't feeling well and went to bed early, if that's okay with you. We'll just finish our work on the ICERs tomorrow."

"Thank you," Jemma repeated, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. With a small smile and puffy eyes, she entered her room and closed the door behind her.

Fitz. She gazed tenderly at the name, silently thanking the cosmos for bringing Fitz back to her. "I'll get better, Fitz, for you and everyone else. I promise."

I know this is a super sensitive topic for some people, so PLEASE let me know if you have any issues with the content of my story and I'll be sure to fix it immediately. And yes, this is one of my longer drabbles because I don't put length limits on my stories.